DUBBED “Blue Monday” by the media, the sale at Carlisle lived up to its name when some cracking sheep came under the hammer, with a depleted ringside to normal years it was good to see plenty of buyers there, along with a healthy dose of bidding over the telephone and online pushing the prices along nicely, giving the sale a very healthy average, with the ewe hoggs burning the biggest hole in the buyers pockets, with the 40 offered averaging a very healthy £1860, up nearly £500 on the year Topping the days trade was a ewe hogg from Midlock. She was a long, clean type of sheep, with a neck which reached for the sky. She is a late born lamb by the well-bred M2 Asby Hall, a son of the K1 Smearsett, which has proved to be quite a breeder and out of Midlock K90, one of the Wights favourite ewes, sired by J6 Hewgill, going back to the same breeding as Midlock Big Yin. Midlock have retained its full brother and sister such is their faith in the bloodlines. The bidding was quick t
Forget the Boxing Day/New Year sales – the Lockdown Ladies Bluefaced Leicester female event at Carlisle on Monday, December 28, will be far more enjoyable. This new sale organised within the last couple of weeks to enable sheep to be exported to Ireland before the December 31 deadline, is made up of in-lamb ewes and gimmers from five top crossing Blue units and includes the entire adult portion of John Smith-Jackson’s well-known Shafthill flock from Hexham.
John Smith-Jackson and his wife Mandy are renowned for breeding top quality North of England Mule ewe lambs from their home-bred Shafthill Bluefaced Leicester rams and are pictured here winning at a former Gilsland Show