| 2019-08-07 |    |
Robert Secures Skipton Prime Lambs Championship
With his first draw of prime lambs this season, Robert Fielden, from Todmorden, claimed the championship at Skipton Auction Mart’s August show and sale. (Mon, Aug 5)
Robert Fielden, who farms 600 white-faced ewes, as well as hill sheep, secured the title with his first prize Continental pen, five home-bred 42kg Beltex-cross-Texel, all by tups bought out of Skipton. They sold for £99 each to regular wholesale buyer Hartshead Meat Co, based in Mossley, Greater Manchester.
Robert Fielden is pictured left with his Skipton prime lamb champions, joined by helpers, among them judge James Dewhirst, second from right.
Hartshead made a clean sweep of the Continental show class prize winners, claiming the second prize and reserve champion 44kg pen from Scott and Laura Robinson, of Barnoldswick, for £98 per head, along with the third prize 41kg pen from Ellis Bros, of Addingham Moorside, at £115 each, these being the top price per kilo on the day at 280.5p/kg.
In the Suffolk-cross show class local judge James ‘Amos’ Dewhirst, from Winterburn, awarded first prize to a 46kg pen from D&A Livestock in Haverah Park, Harrogate, with Frankland Farms in Rathmell standing runner-up with a 41kg offering. Both pens fell to the same retail buyer, Paul Ellison, of Ellisons Butchers in Cullingworth, at £95 and £83 per head respectively.
The third prize 48kg pen from James Earnshaw, of Flasby, sold at £90 to Worsley Wholesale Meats, while in the North of England Mule show class the 46kg red rosette winners from the Wilson family in Blubberhouses made £76 each when joining ringside regular Andrew Atkinson, of Felliscliffe.
In the mix, the day’s leading per head price of £119 fell to a pen of 51kg Beltex lambs from Neil Tattersall, of Ellerton, York, claimed by George Cropper Jnr for his Sandersons Butchers shop in Baxenden. He also purchased the same day’s prime cattle champion.
Back with the lambs, of the multiple £100-plus pens falling to both regular retail and wholesale buyers the Scrivin family, from Elslack, also caught the eye with £117 per head Beltex purchased by Vivers Scotlamb in Annan. The 3,132 Spring lambs on offer sold to a much improved overall average on the week of £84.12, a solid rise of £5.70 per head, or 194p/kg, itself an increase of 14p. This was deemed a great result, considering the huge turnout of lambs.
Also penned for sale were 511 cast sheep, which again sold well, notably lowland ewes, which topped at £110 each for Texels from WH Marsden, of Cross Gates, Leeds, with others at £109.50 from Richard Wilson, of Beckwithshaw. The better end of the Mules sold into the £70s, producing an overall cull ewe average of £52.89, up by £1 on the week. Cast rams averaged £63.86.
Prime Cattle Championship
John Fawcett, of Dale Head Farm, Barden, stood champion with a home-bred British Blue cross heifer at Skipton Auction Mart’s August prime cattle show and sale.
His 530kg victor, by the well utilised stock bull, ‘Jack,’ topped both the by-weight and gross prices when claimed for 276.5p/kg, or £1,466, by George Cropper Jnr on behalf of his Sandersons Butchers shop in Baxenden.
Mr Fawcett was also responsible for the third prize heifer, another Blue-cross weighing 555kg, which fell for £1,440, or 259.5p/kg.
Independent retail butchers were again out in force at the ringside competing for the 19 under 30-month clean cattle on parade, a clear indication that demand for high quality beef is as strong as ever both on the High Street and in farm shops.
Weekly buyer Keelham Farm Shop in Skipton stepped in to secure two, one of which was the reserve champion, the second prize heifer, a 575kg Limousin-cross from Threshfield brothers Charles and Richard Kitching. By a Skipton-bought animal bred by the Bulmer family in Wakefield, the overall runner-up made the day’s second highest gross price of £1,463, or 254.5p/kg.
The Kitchings also consigned the first prize steer, a 580kg Blue-cross sold for £1,366, or 253.5p/kg, to Skipton-based Stanforths Butchers. This, too, was by another bullock bought out of Skipton from regular vendor Peter Fox, of Clitheroe.
The best-selling steer per kilo at 239.5p/kg, or £1,305, was the second prize winner, a 545kg Limousin-cross from Malham Moor’s Bill Cowperthwaite, which also became one of three acquisitions by Stanforths.
Silsden Moor’s Simon Bennett stepped up with the third prize and top gross price steer, a 640kg Limousin-cross sold for £1,404, or 219.5p/kg, to retail butcher William Rathmell, manager of Brayton Farm Shop in Selby. The show classes were judged by Paul Baines, of Trawden.
