As the farming industry enters another year of new challenges and uncertainties, Dingwall and Highland Marts says it is prepared to build for the future with its young team of auctioneers.
The Highland company, which operates marts at Dingwall, Lochmaddy, Stornoway, Portree and Fort William, sold in excess of 225,000 sheep and 23,000 cattle between its five centres last year.
Dingwall Mart itself has welcomed a significant increase in sheep numbers over the past two years and has attracted additional consignments from Perthshire, Morayshire and Aberdeenshire.
It has become an ideal hub for the community and welcomes livestock buyers from all corners of the country including England and Wales, with nearby road links to the north and the south.
Along with the appointment of auctioneer Luke Holmes, in June, 2021, the firm has focused on strengthening its younger team of auctioneering staff, which now includes two trainee auctioneers who initially came to the mart on work experience from school.
The mart has also invested in renewable energy sources over recent years and is on the way to being carbon neutral with wind turbines, biomass and solar panels on site.
Mr Holmes, who predominantly sells sheep at Dingwall, but also sells OTM and store cattle alongside Daniel Urquhart, reflected on a busy 2022, which included several major sales of store lambs, many of which are from hill farms.
“The sheep job has been very up and down,” said Luke Holmes.
“Strong lambs were easily sold, but there was less of them about. There was more long keep lambs because farmer’s generally had higher lambing percentages on the hills, resulting in more lambs to sell in the autumn.
“This did have its disadvantages though as there weren’t as many buyers around who could facilitate longer keep lambs, given the dry weather and lack of grass in the east as appose to the wet weather in the west where most of the lambs come from.
Dry weather
“Dry weather in the south also impacted the English buyers coming up to source the usual amount of lambs.”
Like the majority of marts, he said Dingwall had an influx of cull cows throughout last year and said they were trading £250 more on the 2021 levels.
The sales of store cattle at all centres are well attended by finishers, particularly the sales of calves out in the west and the ballot sales at Dingwall which attract regular buyers every year.
Mr Holmes said that sellers had produced tremendous draws of calves last year, but pointed out that some producers had sold calves at lighter weights than in previous years due to rising costs.
Keeping costs down
He said: “One farmer told me that he cut back on creep feed to keep costs down and he didn’t apply as much fertiliser. As a result, his calves were lighter and didn’t make as much money, but then he did save on input costs so profitability was improved. Perhaps this is the route farmers will have to go down moving forward.”
A highlight for Mr Holmes’ at Dingwall last year was the annual sale of North Country Cheviot tups held in October.
The sale produced a new centre record price of £12,000 and produced a bumper average of £680, with an almost 100% clearance.
Dingwall Mart’s first store cattle sale of 2023 will take place on Wednesday, 18 January, followed by all classes of sheep and its annual cast ram sale on Thursday, 19 January.
