Christmas was in the air in Stranorlar Mart for its final pedigree sale of the year, the Coloured Christmas Cracker. With 60 catalogued lots and a small entry of 20 butcher lambs, it drew a large crowd to the ringside and saw an overall clearance rate of 89%.

Judge for the evening was Alison McCrabbe from the Ardstewart flock. Picked out as her overall champion was a sparky Dutch Spotted ewe lamb from Rachel Gallagher and reserve champion was a perfectly marked Badgerface ewe lamb from Ivor Kee.

Topping the trade at €2,150 was Doaghbeg Havana, a sparky Dutch Spotted ewe lamb from the pen of Brandon McClafferty. McClafferty sold a further three Dutch Spotted ewe lambs to give him a pen average of €1,162.

The next top price of the night was achieved by a Dutch Spotted in-lamb shearling ewe from the Croaghross flock of Rachel Gallagher. Scanned in-lamb with twins she sold for €1,600 to breeders Martin and Thomas Melly.

Her full sister followed also scanned with twins to Westbroad Diego. She sold for €1,400 to Steven Ward. The Croaghross flock also sold 5 Dutch Spotted ewe lambs on the night to average €1,050.

The Blue Texel entry was topped at €600 for a charity lot that was put up for auction by Raphoe based breeder Jessica Wilson. The proceeds of this lamb’s sale went to the Irish Cancer Society.

An extremely strong Suftex section was topped at €600 for a powerful ewe lamb from the pen of Dean Conaghan.

This ewe lamb was purchased by Mark McGeever.

Badgerface section

There was a larger Badgerface section than previous years and it was topped at €660 by a ewe lamb from the Croaghross pen of Rachel Gallagher. Picking up this well-muscled ewe lamb to add to their newly established flock were Cheree and Dylan McGlynn. The day’s reserve champion Badgerface ewe lamb from Ivor Kee sold for €560 to established breeder Damien McElchar.

The butcher lamb section was topped by a pair of Beltex ewe lambs from Brandon McClafferty. The pair sold for €520 each to Kyle Leeper.