The record ewe price was smashed at yesterday's Stortford Lodge stock sale.
Applause broke out among the big crowd of buyers when Argyll farmer Neville Twist paid $310 each for a pen of 384 shorn border-leicester two-tooth ewes sold by the Henderson brothers, from Waipukurau.
Auctioneer Robbie Stuart of Elders Livestock saidthe prices were well above expectations even in the present hot market for ewes.
"This is uncharted territory and unprecedented money," he said. "They broke the record by a country mile."
The capital stock, scanned in-lamb ewes, broke Stortford Lodge and North Island records when they sold after spirited bidding which began at $200-plus.
The Hendersons have sold their farm and were selling their in-lamb ewes yesterday. Their woolly four and five-year romney ewes, also scanned in-lamb, sold for $225 and $220.
PGG Wrightson livestock manager Vern Wiggins said the $310 price was "one out of the blue". Ewes were now consistently fetching between $180 and $220 at the saleyards, he said.
"That's well above what we've been used to. If you got $120 for a scanned in-lamb in previous years you'd be doing very well."
Mr Wiggins said South Island sales had been seeing higher prices for months.
"It's a strong market all over the country."
