MONDAY'S prime cattle section at Skipton Auction Mart attracted 38 entries.

All but five of them were cull cows, which again sold well to average £781.45 per head overall, an increase of over £60 on the week, or 117.78p/kg, compared to the previous week’s 113.9p/kg.

A Swedish Red dairy cow from Stuart Verity, of Clitheroe, produced the leading gross price of £1,045, with a by-weight high of 153.5p/kg for a Limousin from John and Gill Huck, and their son James, of Hubberholme.

All clean cattle entered were under 30-month black and white heifers, with Mr Verity again to the fore with top prices of £941 and 164.5p/kg.

The trade for rearing calves again exceeded expectations.

Top-end British Blue-cross bull calves sold to a day’s high of £515 for an entry from JC and JD Marshall, of West End, Blubberhouses, and produced an average of £364 per head

Blue-cross heifers sold to £435 for a submission from Alan Bowker, of Cowling, and averaged £329 per head overall.

The pick of the black and white youngsters was a £225 bull calf from Ralph Guy, of Earby.

The 68 rearing calves forward produced a Continental-cross selling average of £312 per head, native average of £220 and black and white mean of £117.

Skipton Auction Mart’s latest fortnightly Wednesday sale of store and breeding cattle attracted 110 young feeding bulls, 194 bullocks and heifers, and 61 breeding cattle.

Young bulls produced an overall Continental-cross selling average of £1,057 per head and a native average of £920.

The Townsend family in Laneshawbridge presented a fine run of British Blues, which sold to a day’s high of £1,360, a price equalled by another Blue entry from the Fawcett family in Drebley. The top price pen of four British Blue-cross bulls, also from the Townsends, sold at £1,140 each.

Store bullocks averaged £1,058 for Continental-cross and £936 for natives, with a brace of Limousin from Kevin Wilson, of Blubberhouses, the leading performers on price at £1,295 each. T Blackwell, of Silsden, presented the top price pen of four £1,030 per head Limousin bullocks.

The Continental-cross selling average for store heifers was £988, with a native average of £916. Jonathan Townley, of Clapham, led the way with a £1,310 British Blue, while the top price pen of three Blues from Andrew Fawcett, of Bishop Thornton, each made £1,090.

Young outfits with quality calves were keenly contested, with Ashfield Farms, of Lothersdale, topping the sale at £2,700 for a fine young British Blue heifer with Limousin bull calf at foot, purchased by John and Neil Cowperthwaite, of Eldroth.