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Back to Menu World Record Price Ram Dumfries and Galloway Standard Deveronvale Perfection, a Texel lamb, hit the headlines last month when, at 220,000 guineas, he broke the world record price for a ram. It was without doubt the biggest source for discussion that we have had in the farming world for some time. You would think that it should have been cause for much celebration but amazingly, in true British fashion, some have chosen to frown on that kind of thing! I’ve always marvelled at the way that some folk get het up about the high prices that occasionally get paid for rams. It’s not a modern phenomenon either. It has been an axe that has been well ground over the years. The first reaction is normally seen in the press where pundits will point out that it makes it difficult for our farming leaders to plead for support for the struggling sheep industry when such huge prices are grabbing the headlines. At first glance this would seem like a damming indictment against those involved with any transaction that crosses the bounds of normality. That is, if you believe that the government ministers are so stupid that they will chose to focus on a single transaction to gauge the wellbeing of an entire industry. It’s a bit like saying that government should withdraw all support for the arts when Jack Vettriano knocks out an oil painting that goes for £300,000 at auction. Although the “it’s so damaging for the industry” type of nonsense is to be expected from the newspaper hacks it always takes me by surprise when ordinary farmers express strong negative views about these six figure priced sheep. “They should get their Single Farm Payments docked” is typical of the kind of comment that you will get in the course of a conversation about a big price that has been paid for a ram. Isn’t it funny that it’s the person who has just parted with a huge amount of money that is vilified by the rank and file in our industry when in most other industries it is the ones who receive inflated amounts of money that come in for criticism? In the sheep farming world the man who sells the ram for a high price slips bye unmolested by the pack. There is never any question about the vendor of the ram being forced to return the money. So when you break it down what you have is a situation where someone, who is very able indeed, produces the kind of animal that every stockman in the country would love to breed and brings it to the market. A second person who has the nerve and the money to outbid all-comers to secure that animal for himself buys it at public auction. It’s a simple system that is the cornerstone of the pedigree animal business. I bet there is not one of those who are going tut-tut about the big price tag that would not love to be like any one of those two characters that I’ve just described. So as my teenage children would tell me when something has happened that I’m struggling to come to terms with. Get over it.
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