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A sheep was bought for £ 367,500 at auction, which is believed to make it the most expensive sheep ever sold.
Pedigree Texel Double Diamond lamb was sold to three farmers at the Scottish National Texel Sale in Lanark on Thursday.
The starting bid was £ 10,000, with Charlie Boden and his family from his herd of Sportsmans in Stockport, Cheshire, pocketing the final bid.
Double Diamond’s starting price was £ 10,000
One of the buyers, Jeff Aiken, flock manager at Procters Farm, told Sky News that many breeders had their eye on Double Diamond because it was a “special animal.”
He said, “I knew I was going to make a lot of money, but I didn’t expect me to make that much.
“It is just an exceptional animal. It is a huge lamb with great confirmation and character, something that breeding is all about.
“But with the pedigree you start to see the smallest details of the lamb, you look at its head, the hair color, the color around the eyes, the legs, it was perfect in every way.”
Aiken said the six-month-old animal will travel between herds for the next several months to mate with the different sheep that farmers have.
“Hopefully it will live for a long time and as long as it is fit and healthy, we will continue to use and reproduce with it,” said the farmer.
He added that he hoped that by next year farmers would have recovered part of their money, and said the price is “unique” and not a reflection of the agricultural industry.
The Texel Sheep Society said the previous record was £ 231,000 paid for a Texel, Deveronvale Perfection, in 2009.
The breed is regularly sold for five-figure sums, however Double Diamond has broken the record.
Texel sheep originate from the island of Texel, one of the islands in the northwest of the Netherlands.
Now they are stalwarts of the British sheep industry.
