2023 underlined the depth and strength of the livestock sector in the North as Kirkby Stephen Auction Mart Auctioneer Mark Richardson reviews a reassuring year.
2023 has been a very successful year again here at Kirkby Stephen, with quality, numbers, and prices for all classes of stock strong throughout the year. The consistent high quality of lambs, suckler calves and store cattle we have been able to offer is a testament to our local breeders, attracting buyers from far and wide, and achieving premium prices.
Cattle
Cattle sales set off strongly from the beginning of the year, with good January and February sales, and the Kirkby Classic March sales were the best we’ve had so far, topped at £4,000 for a 12 month British Blue heifer. Overall Champion on the day was a 9 month old Limousin x heifer, sold for £3,300, and the Overall Reserve Champion went to a Limousin heifer sold for £3,000.
All classes of quality store cattle were an exceptional trade, with heifers averaging £1370.18, up £82.73 on the year, and steers averaged £1320.31, up £115.68 on the previous year. The Kirkby Classic is becoming an important fixture in the national sale calendar, growing every year in popularity for buyers and sellers for show cattle, and recognized country-wide.
Suckler bred store cattle and suckled calves have achieved premium prices throughout the year, due to the decline in suckled cow numbers being kept. This held true at the annual Luke Fair sale of store cattle, held in October, where we saw a top price on two occasions of £2,130 for an 18 month old British Blue x steer and an 18 month old Limousin x steer. Many of the best strong steers and heifers sold in excess of £2000 with one consignment of 40 cattle averaging £1770.74.
The trade that day for strong, smart bred cattle was one of the dearest ever seen, with the sale average for steers at £1509.76 up £204.35, and the average for heifers at £1371.91 up £220.45 on the previous year. Many of the best cattle sold extremely well, highlighting the lack of numbers of quality homebred suckler stock pushing prices to premium levels.
Following closely after that was the Suckled Calf sale in November, with a top price of £3,000 for a 10 month old Limousin x heifer. Overall Champion went to a 6 month old Limousin x steer which sold for £2,300, and once again many of the best calves sold in excess of £2,000 with 41 calves in the day sold between £1,500 and £3,000. The Steers averaged £1,228.25, up £170.51, with Heifers averaging £1,175.94, up £131.44 on the year. The overall sale average for steers and heifers was £1,204.45, up £153.16 on the year.
We see a lot of the best quality calves produced in the country at this sale, which attracts buyers from the length and breadth of the UK to purchase quality suckler calves here at Kirkby Stephen.
Our annual beef breeding cattle sale, held at the beginning of November, topped at £4800, for the first placed outfit, a Limousin cross heifer with Limousin calf at foot, other outfits on this day regularly sold between £3500 – 4000. In-calf heifers also topped on this day at £4,100 for Limousin cross heifer in-calf to the Limousin, with other in-calf heifers also selling to £4000. A highlight of this day was a consignment of 24 in-calf heifers from one vendor averaging a fantastic £3135.42. 117 in-calf heifers sold to average 2732.94 which was up 316.36 on the year, 130 in-calf heifers sold to average £2489.47 which was up 87.20 on the year.
Sheep
The year’s sheep trade has seen a similar consistent trend in high quality, numbers and prices.
Our prime lamb trade has remained very strong from the beginning of the year, with the supply and demand ratio made increasingly favourable by the tighter numbers coming forward, perhaps due to the drought in summer, which set lambs back and some of the poor scanning results in the early lambing sheep.
Our weekly Tuesday night sales keep going from strength to strength, and the whole prime lamb trade has remained buoyant throughout, with the usual seasonal slump often seen around September to early November replaced by record results.
On November 7th, a time of year when trade can usually be under pressure, our prime sheep sale broke records with an average 301.6 p/kg and an SQQ sale average of 310.31 p/KG, equating to £134.31 a head for 2,765 lambs sold, which is unheard of for the time of the year and amongst the biggest averages we have ever achieved in that seasonal sale.
The market has consistently seen 12-14 buyers competing to achieve premium rates for all classes. The best end continental cross lambs are regularly making £160-170 and in excess of £4per kilo. Our most recent sale, 12th December, saw 3,591 lambs come forward, with an overall sale average of 290.04 p/KG and an SQQ of 296.21 p/kg, the sale topped at £198 for a pair of Texel cross lambs.
Amongst the sheep sales highlights in 2023, the NEMSA show and sale of Mule gimmer lambs held on September 8th saw 9,944 Mule gimmer lambs on offer. The sale topped at £480 for a pen of 10 and the Overall Champion pen of 10 sold at £340. The sale average on this day was £121.70, up £2.79 for 607 more lambs sold at the same sale in 2022. Strong tupping lambs were in great demand and achieved premium rates, with buyers looking to secure tupping lambs early in the season, with running lambs being a similar trade on the year.
Our continental sheep breeding sale held in late September produced the dearest trade we have seen from start to finish. This is a sale growing in both the quality and numbers of good continental breeding sheep on offer, with bidding topping out at £460 on four separate occasions for pure Texel two shears. Across the whole sale ewes and shearlings averaged £207.19 for all breeds, highlighting an increase in the numbers of buyers looking to breed quality prime lambs, including continental crosses which is reflected in this breeding sale.
Our end of September sale of registered and unregistered Swaledale ewes and shearlings topped at £500 for a pen of 5 ewes, with many other top quality pens seeing in excess of £200 and an overall sale average of £127.90 being achieved. The day after, we held our annual crossing Bluefaced Leicester Ram and Female sale, topping the prices at £5000 for a ram lamb.
With an overall sale average for aged, shearling and ram lambs of £1001.98 was achieved, with many people saying that this was probably one of the best Leicester sales we have ever held at Kirkby Stephen, with many new customers, buyers and sellers attending.
For record-breaking excitement, however, the highlight of the year was the annual Swaledale Sheep Breeders Association ‘C’ District 3 day ram sale in October. On the Thursday and Friday, not one but two shearling rams topped the sale at £105,000, and jointly broke the previous £101,000 record set way back in 2001. The sale saw a fantastic overall two-day average of £2,606.25, up £333 on the year, with 595 rams sold.
The Luke Fair sale of breeding sheep which caps the end of the sale season topped off at £400 a head for a pen of five 2/4 crop Swaledale ewes, but all breeds and classes sold to extreme rates once again to a packed ring of buyers attracted from far and wide by the quality and volume of stock offered by our local breeders, at this sale late in the season.
2024
The increased pressure to join environmental schemes is undoubtedly discouraging the numbers of livestock bred in the UK. But the North remains a powerhouse of production in terms of both quality and numbers, and we would expect the shortage of proper homebred stock to continue to drive demand and prices to new heights going forward into the next year.
As always at the end of another successful year, I would like to thank all the dedicated livestock farmers, breeders and producers who trust us with the successful sale of their sheep and cattle, and the growing numbers of buyers who travel long distances to secure the quality of stock they know they will find here.
Many thanks also to our great team here at Kirkby Stephen and across the whole Harrison & Hetherington family.
Happy New Year!!