Quality again on offer at Skipton prime cattle show day
Skipton Auction Mart’s September prime cattle show attracted a high quality turnout of 27 under 30-month entries, producing an overall steer average of £1,320 per head, or 236.28p/kg, across the 558kg weight average, and a heifer average of £1,277, or 241.43p/kg for the 530kg weight average. A total of18 cattle from the entry made 230p/kg or above. (Mon, Sept 2)
Alan Beecroft, of Countrystyle Meats Farm Shop & Restaurant in Lancaster, accounted for a number of notable highs, including the champion, the first prize 545kg Limousin-cross heifer from Threshfield brothers Charles and Richard Kitching.
Bred by the Nelson family at Bull and Cave Farm in Clapham, bought out of Skipton in March and further improved on the farm, the title winner sold for second top gross price of £1,463 or 268.5p/kg. Countrystyle also added two smart Limousin-cross heifers from the Critchley family in Hutton at 259.5p/kg, or £1,362, and 253.5p/kg, or £1,368.
The day’s most prolific buyer with a 13-strong haul was James Robertshaw, seven of them for Keelham Farm Shop in Skipton, the other six for his own Robertshaws Farm Shop in Thornton, among them the first prize bullock and reserve champion from first-time father and daughter vendors, Alastair and Ellie Hargreaves, of Hargreaves Estates in Preston. The 615kg Limousin-cross steer made £1,467, or 238.5p/kg.
Keelham’s tally included the highest priced per kilo steer, a 500kg Limousin-cross from Malham Moor’s Bill Cowperthwaite, which made 251.5p/kg, or £1,258. An 18-month-old 740kg British Blue bull from John Horner, of Buckden, made 169.9p/kg, or £1,254, when selling to to Pearson Wholesale Butchers in Bradford.
Other retail butcher buyers included Skipton-based Stanforths and Ellisons in Cullingworth, who both took home four each. Show judge was Clapham’s Jonathan Townley.
The 29 cull cows penned for sale sold to an overall average of £604.61 per head, or 96.13p/kg, beef-bred entries selling to 129.5p/kg and dairies to 113.5p/kg.
Trade at the same morning’s weekly sale of 46 rearing calves was strong for most breeds, with a joint top price of £405 for a brace of British Blue-cross heifers from the Sowray family in Bishop Thornton. Continental-cross entries averaged £306.42, natives £225 and black and whites £113.33.
ENDS
Pic caption 1: Charles Kitching with the September prime cattle champion at Skipton.
Pic caption 2: Ellie Hargreaves with the September prime cattle reserve champion at Skipton.
Calderdale coup at Skipton prime lambs show
The September prime lambs show at Skipton Auction Mart saw both the championship and reserve championship fall to a brace of Beltex-cross pens of five from the same Calderdale exhibitor, George Sunderland, of Sykes Gate Farm, Cragg Vale, Hebden Bridge. (Mon, Sept 2)
His 44kg victors sold for £109.50 per head, or 248.9p/kg, to Vivers Scotlamb in Annan, with the overall runners-up knocked down for £102.50 to Hartshead Meat Co in Mossley, Greater Manchester.
Vivers again stepped in to claim the third prize pen from Ellis Bros, of Addingham Moorside at £102, also purchasing the day’s top price per kilo pen from the same home at 255.7p/kg, or £112.50. These were 44kg Beltex-cross.
David and Laura Coar, from Darwen, topped the per head prices at £117 for 46kg Beltex-crosses, which were also the second highest price per kilo at 254.3pkg and were again purchased by Vivers.
The first prize Down-cross pen, 44kg Suffolks from James Earnshaw, of Flasby, sold for £80 each to Countrystyle Meats Farm Shop & Restaurant in Lancaster, with the red rosette-winning pen of North of England Mules from the Stoney family in Pateley Bridge knocked down for £77 per head to Felliscliffe’s Andrew Atkinson. Judges were Nick Dalby, of Hartwith, and Andrew Hutchinson, from Faceby.
A resounding turnout of 4,254 prime sheep saw the 3,749 Spring lambs among them level at a very respectable 174.5p/kg, or £76.67 per head, for a very mixed selection.
Also among the mix were 505 cast sheep, comprising 475 ewes and 30 rams, which found a very good following and sold to a competitive average of £53.58 per head, topping at £127.50 for a Texel ram from Richard Wilson, of Crimple Head, Beckwithshaw, and £110.50 each for cull ewes from the same vendor.