CUMBRIAN livestock auctioneer Harrison and Hetherington is predic-ting around 150,000 head of store and breeding sheep will go under the hammer during its aut-umn sales.

Some of the best bree-ding sheep in the UK are expected to pass through the firm’s seven marts, including Kirkby Stephen and Broughton-in-Furness, from the end of this month.

The sales, the largest in the country, bring buyers from across the UK and Europe to the area to buy pedigree and commercial ewes and rams. More than 18 breeds, including Beltex, Texel, Suffolk, Bluefaced Leicesters, Cheviots, Lleyns, Charollais and Rouges, will pass through.

Tomorrow (Friday), the Borderway show and sale of Zwartbles sheep and the Northern Counties Suffolk sale both take place along with the August Fair sale of com-mercial breeding sheep.

This is followed on August 14 and 15 by the biggest show and sale of Beltex sheep in the country.

Auctioneers Mark Rich-ardson, who farms four miles from the Kirkby Stephen mart and will look after the autumn mule and Swaledale sales, predicted ‘between 10,000 and 12,000 gimmer lambs’ would be auction-ed at the main sale at Kirkby Stephen on Sept-ember 12.

The main sales for Swaledales take place in Kirkby Stephen and Middleton-in-Teesdale in September and October and are the major events for draft ewes, breeding rams and ewe lambs.

“As a result of the 2013 lambing there may be a shortage of numbers so we expect the stock to be very much in demand,” he said.

Harrison and Hetherington sales director Scott Donaldson said: “With the losses during lambing last year, we are anticipating farmers will be looking to restock at this season’s sales to bring numbers back up to optimum levels.”