THIS is the one-millionth ram lamb to be tested under the National Scrapie Plan and the animal is to go under the hammer at a sale on Friday, September 3.

The milestone was reached during the testing of sheep belonging to the Uffold family at The Firs, Broncroft, Craven Arms.

Said David Uffold, a partner of Mrs I M Uffold and Sons: "Everybody has milestones in their lives and the same is true of any scheme or initiative.

"We have been breeding with scrapie resistance as an objective for some considerable time now and it was with surprise and delight that we had the one millionth sheep to be tested under the national plan."

The Uffold family has held a sale of pedigree Texels for 16 years at The Firs, and this year some 72 rams and females will be sold. All the sheep will have class one or two resistance to scrapie with several ARR/ARR rams available.

The sale, at 8pm, will be conducted by McCartneys of Ludlow. It will be sponsored by Agri-Lloyd from Leominster and a bottle of champagne will be given to the purchaser of the one millionth sheep, to celebrate the rare occasion.