A TOTAL of 50 youngsters were on parade at Skipton’s weekly rearing calf sale on Monday.

There was an overall average of £376 per head for continental-cross entries, £235 for native breeds and £86.78 for dairy-bred black and whites.

British Blues again had the best of the trade, selling to a day’s high of £470 for a bull calf from John and Simon Moon, of Wigglesworth, who were also responsible for the top price black and white bull calf at £160. Church Farm Enterprises, of Burton Leonard, headed the heifer prices with a £350 Blue-cross.

Paul Bolland, of Airton, presented the top price Limousin-cross calves, a bull at £230 and a heifer at £195, while Aberdeen Angus proved the pick of the native breeds, with a top price £300 bull calf from Alf Townsend, of Southfield, and a £270 heifer calf from Bolton Abbey’s JP and KE Hartley.

The 38 cast cows forward in the prime cattle section sold to an overall average of £700.43, or 106.61p/kg, peaking at £976, or 137.5p/kg, for a British Blue from Brian Lund, of Walshaw.

The pick of the dairy-bred prices were black and whites from WP Gratton, of Brimham Rocks, which sold for a per head high of £972, and Bell Busk’s Brian Moorhouse achieved a by-weight top of 123.5p/kg.