NI members’ virtual Volac Show Championship 2021 gets underway

Following the success of last year’s Virtual Volac competition the Northern Ireland Texel Sheep Breeder’s Club has decided to run this format again for 2021 for its paid members, kindly sponsored by Alistair Sampson, Volac.

The Club has had generous sponsorship for this regular event in the Club’s calendar for many years from Volac and the competition has been recognised by breeders as a prestigious achievement to be the overall Volac Show Champion Flock. This year’s virtual competition will commence week beginning 31st May 2021, with members wishing to participate asked to submit a 30 second video and two photographs by 12 mid-day on the Thursday of each week the particular class is running. To ensure equity and fairness, anyone using professional videos and photographs will be disqualified. Entries will also only be accepted from paid club members. Only two entries per breeder per class can be accepted. Entries will be submitted for judging as lot numbers to ensure anonymity with results for each class announced at the end of the competition.

Judges for each class are well renowned breeders from across the UK and Ireland. The classes are being judged as follows:

Week 31st May 2021 Aged Ram Flor Ryan, Ryan Texels Co Kildare

Week 14th June 2021 Aged Ewe Patrick O’Keefe, Annakisha & Clyda Pedigree Sheep, Co Cork

Week 28th June 2021 Ewe Lamb Ben Vernon Charben Flock, Staffordshire

Week 12th July 2021 Shearling Ram Donald MacPherson, Hexel Texels Northumberland

Week 26th July 2021 Shearling Ewe David Dunlop Holtridge Texels Cheshire

Week 9th August 2021 Ram Lamb Willy Davies Usk Vale Pedigrees Pontypool

Week 16th August 2021 Overall Championship Charlie Boden Sportsmans & Mellor Vale Texels Cheshire

Entries to be emailed to [email protected]. Photos should be in JPEG format, clearly outlining the class being entered along with the animal’s eartag number, name of breeder and contact details.

For further details please contact Club Chairman Fraser Tweed or Club Secretary Martin Warnock. Sec: 07791679112.

About the judges:

Ben Vernon

Ben Vernon of the Charben Flock, has been breeding Texels for 17 years now, but it has only been in recent years the flock has begun to really progress through the use of E.T. The Flock holds the current Champion flock of the Derbyshire Texel club. Ben is looking forward to judging the ewe lamb class in this years NI Texel Sheep Breeder’s Club Virtual Volac competition. Ben says: “I look forward to my own ewe lambs every year and can’t wait to see what you guys over the water have to offer. It has been a very challenging 12 months with the global pandemic and it will be nice to get chance to see some stock albeit in a different format to the normal shows which we all miss.”

Charlie Boden

The Cheshire based Sportsmans Flock owned by Charlie Boden and family was established in 1974. This family run business has grown from strength to strength with recent achievements seeing top price Lanark 2017 Sportsmans A Star (130,000gns); Top price Carlisle 2018 Sportsmans Batman (100,000gns) and Lanark 2020 making the World record with a Garngour Craftsman son, Sportsmans Double Diamond selling for 350,000gns and the record pen average for 7 Sportsmans lambs at £71,655. Charlie is well placed to judge the NI Texel Club’s overall champion for their Virtual Volac Show Champion Competition 2021.

David Dunlop

David Dunlop originally started with pedigree Texels back in 1995 when he founded the Carntall flock at his home farm just outside Ballyclare.  He ran the Carntall Flock from 1995 to 2003, selling ram lambs at the main Northern Ireland sale as well as local sales until he moved to England.  After moving to England David started to work for Genus ABS who he still works for today.  In 2017 after moving to Holtridge farm David along with his wife Julie and children Abbey and Rory, started the Holtridge flock.  They did this with some select purchases from the Sportmans, Strathbogie, Milnbank and Forkins flocks.  Their aim is to produce quality ram lambs and sell some excess females. 

The Dunlop family have really enjoyed getting back into breeding their own Texels again and have had great fun at their local shows in Shropshire and Cheshire as well as topping the ram lambs at their local sale in Shrewsbury the last two years.  They have also had some success at national sales with ram lambs and gimmers heading back to NI which David says has been really pleasing.  David is really looking forward to judging the Shearling Ewe Class in the N.I. Texel Club’s Virtual show competition.

Donald MacPherson

The Hexel Flock owned by Donald Macpherson and family is based in Berwick-upon-Tweed and in its 27th year breeding pedigree Texels. The name Hexel is synonomous with background breeding in many pedigree flocks across the UK.

Initially attracted to using Texel rams on their cross bred flock the Macpherson’s gradually built their pedigree flock to achieve notable success with Born to be Wild, Lexus and Wildcard who went on to be well known Texel sires to the success of 2020 with their highest price yet for a ram lamb, Hexel Diango selling in Lanark for 65,000gns and taking the top call for a ewe lamb at 20,000gns. Donald looks forward to the privilege of judging this year’s Shearling Ram Class in the NI Texel Sheep Breeder’s Club Virtual Volac competition.

Flor Ryan

Based in prosperous Co Kildare, Ireland Flor Ryan and family have been farming Texel sheep for over 30 years. Ryan Texels is made up of three flocks, Graigues, Rotsee and Lawn and are well known among Texel circles in Southern Ireland and further afield.

When producing Texel sheep the Ryans focus on commercial attributes of the breed resulting with progeny regularly topping the shearling average for both ewes and rams at the annual Blessington Premier Sale every August. Many successful Texels have been sold from the Ryan Flocks with one of the biggest highlights to date being FRI 16051 selling to the Hexel Flock in Northumberland who has gone on to breed sons to 65,000gns.

Patrick O’Keefe

The award winning Annakisha Texel flock is based at The O’Keeffe family farm in Annakisha on the outskirts of Mallow, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Initially established in 2001 and later expanded with ewes purchased from the Claybury Flock in 2004 which had a major influence on the flock. The flock has enjoyed numerous successes since, notably Supreme and Interbreed Champion at the All Ireland 2019, Premier sale championships and numerous show championships as well as show flock of the year 2016, 2017, 2019 and Reserve 2018. Patrick O’Keefe is well placed to judge this year’s Aged Ewe class in the NI Texel Sheep Breeders Club Virtual Volac Competition.

willy davis

Established in 2014, the Usk Vale flock was started with select purchases from some of the uk’s top flocks. Usk Vale are currently running around 20 breeding ewes. In 2018 the decision was made to solely concentrate on sheep, having previously worked within the family’s poultry business, that decision paid off as the following year gave them their most successful year of sales to date, selling five lambs to average over 20k. 

Willy considers it a ‘great honour to be asked to judge the ram lamb class in this virtual show’ and wishes all those entering good luck.