It proved a jam-packed weekend for livestock at the Borderway Mart over the weekend, with a number of top-end sales also taking place on the sheep side of the house.

It was the Texel breed which hit the headlines with two different sales taking place over the Friday and Saturday combining 24 of the best-known UK flocks. Topping trade at the Christmas Stars Sale were the Sportsman and Mellorvale flocks, which achieved the two top prices of 15,000gns and 13,000gns respectively. The top price was secured by the team’s 2016 show gimmer by Vicious Sid who is a maternal sister to the 8,500gns Uniroyal and 4,000gns Young Yin. Making the young gimmer even more attractive was a single pregnancy to the 52,000gns Clinterty Yogi Bear. The 13,000gns gimmer also sold in lamb to Yogi Bear with her dam an ET sister to Sportmans Van Wilder, Welsh national champion. This marked a great day for the Sportsman and Mellorvale team who also claimed the top average of £3,857 for 15 gimmers slightly above that of the Knap flock who were next best with nine gimmers at £3,850.

Topping the Sapphire Blue Texel sale were Steve and Sara Gibbons of the Whatmore Flock with Whatmore Yawn Triplet. Sired by the homebred Whatmore Wasp, who bred progeny up to 7,000gns already this year, this triplet gimmer found a new home in Northern Ireland with A Richardson, Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh at 4,500gns.

The Birness flock of George L Stuart secured both the top price and top average at the Dark Diamonds Suffolk sale. The top price of 7,5000gns was achieved by one of George’s shearling gimmers by stock ram Jubilee Jackpot who was purchased at Carlisle in 2013. Born January 2015, she sold in-lamb to Cavanagrove Catalyst, who was purchased in Stirling for 6,500gns.

Overall, the flock averaged £2,275 for nine shearling gimmers, some of which were sired by Annakisha Apache, the champion ram in Roscrea 2014 and bred by the O’Keeffe family in Cork.