Hosting annual on-farm sales of breeding beef heifers and sheep proved to be a success for Northern Ireland farmer James Alexander. But when COVID hit he then turned to online sales with an auctioneer selling the animals live as they were paraded through the ring on the farm, though with no ringside audience.
Following a major restructuring in 2014, Alexander sold off the farm’s herd of 450 suckler cows (a cow-calf operation) and steered the business into a new direction of supplying bred beef heifers and breeding sheep to other farmers.
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This program meant buying in top-quality beef heifers to inseminate and sell in-calf. On the sheep side, he bought the best ewe lambs he could find in Scotland to use as flock replacements and as breeding stock for sale.
Alexander farms in partnership with his parents Nelson and Anne, wife Ruth and their young family on their 1,000-acre farm near Randalstown in County Antrim.
As well as the livestock business trading under the name Jalex Livestock, James and Nelson have since the 1970s also run a used tractor and 4×4 sales business.
The farm runs about 800 to 1,000 heifers at any one time, and this year’s sheep flock consists of 650 Cheviot mule ewes and over 100 pedigree Suffolk sheep. (Draft Cheviot ewes are crossed with the Bluefaced Leicester to produce what’s known as the ‘Cheviot Mule’.)
“We currently farm 1,000 acres, mostly owned with some conacre, and run 1,000 heifers at any one time,” says James. (Conacre, a corruption of corn-acre, in Ireland, is a system of renting land, formerly in small patches or strips, often used to grow corn or potatoes.)
“The business plan is to source suitable heifers from the U.K. and Ireland, get them in calf and sell them. We have been selling privately for the last 10 years straight from the farm and introduced on-farm/online auction sales to help during the COVID-19 era. With two cattle sales completed, we have more planned this year, one of which will be purely online. Also, we run 750 ewes, including 150 pedigree Suffolk ewes and 500 Cheviot Mule commercial ewes, and a few recipients used for carrying embryos from the Suffolk ewes.”
A business and social link
Livestock marts across rural Ireland form a vital social hub for farmers but it collapsed when COVID hit. The industry quickly realized cattle and sheep needed to be sold to maintain a sustainable food chain and thus the digital mart was born to facilitate sales and generate much-needed income for farmers.
On-farm sales in Northern Ireland are mostly used for herd dispersals — usually dairy animals, and for machinery sales. For James Alexander, going online was the perfect solution to the challenging logistics of moving so many head of sheep and cattle to marts frequently throughout the year.
Pre-COVID, the digital sale from a livestock mart was uncommon but now dual or hybrid marketing systems work. Even when farmers can physically attend the marts, the online version is still very much in play as a new tool for buying and selling livestock.
Alexander knows a good heifer when he sees one and uses a number of breeds to produce that top-quality animal he is aiming for.
“We use a lot of cattle breeds, with an emphasis on quality, and have a good reputation for selling well-shaped British Blue crossed Limousin heifers.’”
(The British Blue is a crossbreed originating from Belgium importers crossing the English Shorthorns with Dutch Friesians. They soon became popular with the U.K. beef cattle breeders as they are docile by nature, fine-boned, heavily muscled, have tremendous growth potential and produce a high-yielding carcass.)
“Also, we have Simmental crosses, Shorthorn crosses, which are less muscled heifers but it’s always the shapely ones that make the headlines and people see in the photos,” Alexander says.
Make the most of resources
Alexander is quite tech-savvy when it comes to using social media to promote his stock and made the transition to online farm sales quickly when COVID hit.
“The pandemic sped up the ability to buy livestock online and I was keen to use it,” he says. “I had been using social media as a marketing tool for a long time and having the on-farm sale was an extension of this.
“Buying stock online is not for everyone, I know, but the heifers we chose to put through the online sales are top quality. I want to give the person at home the confidence to either buy online or get them interested enough to come and see for themselves what I have on offer. With every heifer being individually professionally photographed and videoed, the animal can be seen from all angles. Plus, all info I have about each animal is also listed.”
Buyers log in and purchase stock from all over the UK and Ireland, as online sales have a longer reach to more armchair buyers.
The online sales are streamed via the livestock mart app MartEye and with an auctioneer taking the bids in the ring. MartEye was developed during COVID to help livestock marts facilitate sales when they were closed.
“An on-farm sale is more relaxing for the buyer as they get a chance to see round the farm and what type of stock you are keeping,” Alexander says. “It’s also easier on the stock with less haulage involved, and the online bidding adds that extra precedence which is needed with COVID-19.”
He adds that online bidding makes a huge difference, as people can either bid on the day at the sale, or from their own homes, or they can leave a proxy bid.
“We have heifers in the yard for all farmers as we have a large customer base that doesn’t need the heavily muscled heifers, just a good straight, soft fleshing, less high maintenance heifer,” says Alexander.
“Everyone’s opinion on what is a good suckler cow is different and it should be as we all have different setups, different time constraints and different end goals for what we produce.”
When it comes to the challenges of hosting an on-farm sale and the virtual equivalent, Alexander acknowledges having many sleepless nights.
“I have lots of sleepless nights getting it all planned in my head. The first sale is always the worst — planning pens, what way will the cattle flow in and out of the ring, what to put where in the sale, what to put into the pens together, and what order to put them in.
“However, it’s a team effort and good communication between us is so critical. We all have to be aiming in the same direction. I’m lucky to have a good team around as none of what we are doing can be carried out without it.”
