World’s priciest sheep is a record-breaking Romeo

A farmer who owns the world’s priciest sheep has made a mint from its lambs.

Jimmy Douglas’s champion ram, Deveronvale Perfection, has sired well over 1,000 offspring since he shelled out £231,000 for him five years ago.

He revealed that his first son fetched £1,700 in 2011 three times the average price for a ram lamb and his daughter was overall champion at the Carlisle sheep show last year and sold for a whopping £11,500.

The four-year-old Texel tup the term for an uncastrated male has also been in demand from farmers at home and abroad who will pay up to £60 for samples for assisted conception.

Jimmy, who has farmed in Fraserburgh for more than 46 years, is keeping tight-lipped about the money made from his prized ram. But he’s understood to have earned well into six figures.

“His samples sell for £60 and regularly go over to the continent,” Jimmy admitted. “But I wouldn’t be comfortable putting an exact figure on what his breeding programme has fetched. I will say that he is very much in demand.

“He’s the perfect gentleman and we’ve had no complaints from the farms he visits or his artificial insemination customers.”

Deveronvale Perfection, who was bred by hi-tech embryo transfer, is a son of another famously well-bred lamb, Kelso Oxygen. Jimmy vowed to buy him after seeing a photo in Scottish Farmer magazine.

The then six-month-old shattered a 20-year world record when he was bought at the Lanark mart in August 2009. The deal eclipsed the previous world record sum paid for a sheep of £205,000, forked out in 1989 in Australia for a Merino tup.

Since then Deveronvale Perfection has toured Scotland servicing entire flocks in 10-day stopovers.

And his artificial breeding programme has been in demand by farmers in France and the Netherlands, where the Texel originates.

The plucky Romeo’s former owner, Graham Morrison from Banff, said: “He will have been a good investment. It is every farmer’s dream to produce the world’s best ram. As soon as I set eyes on him as a lamb I knew I had a champ on my hands.

“We had to give him a name with P because all stock had to have this initial that year. Perfection suited him to a tee.”

The fleecy flier is far from high maintenance. When he is not out romancing he lives with the rest of Jimmy’s flock in the Aberdeenshire fields.

“He’s not really one for any pampering or special diets but prefers to graze with the rest of my sheep,” Jimmy explained.