A RESPECTED Tynedale farming business is selling off its 500-strong North of England Blackface flock due to a change in breeding policy.

The forthcoming dispersal will be an on-farm sale at High Staward, Langley, due to the sheer numbers of stock involved.

A total of 300 Blackface ewe lambs and 200 gimmers, bred from noted Wanwood Hill, Chapel House and home-bred sires with bloodlines going back to Sewingshields, Horseholme and Hotbank - and the record-breaking £20,000 Toft House tup will be going under the auctioneer's hammer next Friday (September 15).

Paul Coulson said he and his father, Robbie, had decided to concentrate on the Lanark type blackface in order to simplify their farming enterprise.

"North of England Blackface are best suited to breeding the Mule and we no longer breed Mules, we run everything pure, so they are better suited to people who are doing that," said Paul.

"There is a big circle of buyers for the Lanark type - from England, Scotland and Ireland - they're mainly bought for breeding pure Blackface females and tups and that's the direction we have headed down these past five years. We sell at Lanark, Stirling and Dalmally plus various other venues in the future."

The Coulsons have a 450 strong flock of the Lanark type. In the past they have invested in top class gimmers from Auldhouseburn, one of the leading Blackface farms in Scotland.

At Friday's sale, there will also be the opportunity to bid for semen from that record-breaking £20,000 Toft House tup in aid of the Bright Red blood cancer charity.

"He's no longer alive - he died a couple of years ago but we had 192 straws of semen stored off him. Whatever it raises will go to the Bright Red charity which helped my uncle Matt." Matt is Robbie's brother and was a long-serving manager of Allendale Co-op before he retired. He underwent a bone marrow transplant back in April 2013 and, although he is awaiting kidney surgery at present, is otherwise well.

Paul added: "This is a perfect opportunity for anyone just starting up or who wants to add to a flock. They are the best Blackface females we have on the farm. It's not an opportunity that comes around very often to buy stock sheep, especially straight off the farm they were born."

Asked whether he would miss the North of England types, he said there was no room for nostalgia.

"You can't be like that really. You have got to go with what is the right thing to do for the future, it's no good looking into the past. We have had a lot of good years (running both types) and we are just slightly changing the breeding policy of the business."

Also, Paul is retaining some 300 of the older North of England type who will be tupped this autumn with a view to selling the offspring in autumn 2018.

Hexham Mart auctioneer, Chris Armstrong is a recent past chairman of the Blackface Sheep Breeders Association and breeder of the Hexham type himself. He said:"I view the dispersal at ‘Staward’ with mixed emotions; sad to lose one of the most prominent breeders within the type in our region but delighted to have been asked to disperse the entry of 500 top quality Hexham type females on behalf of the family. An on-farm sale allows potential purchasers to visit the farm of origin and make an informed decision as to the suitability of the sheep based on the comparison of High Staward against their own holding - or to put it in farming terms ‘will the sheep shift’?"