SKIPTON Auction Mart's latest fortnightly Wednesday cattle sale featured a turnout of 429 head, including 128 young feeding bulls and 286 bullocks and heifers, plenty of which achieved four figure prices.

A younger entry of bulls met with a decent trade and while there were less top-end submissions, quality sold well, while commercial types also had plenty of bidders. This section produced a Continental-x selling average of £895 per head, and a native average of £577.

Trawden's Hayley Baines achieved top call of £1,360 for a Limousin-cross, with the top price pen of three Simmental young bulls presented by AE Schindler, of Thorpe, each selling at £950.

In the stores section, good older cattle were dearer than the previous sale, while suckled calves were forward in good numbers and heifers found a nice enquiry from a full ringside of buyers.

There were 70 successful different purchasers on the day drawn from Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire, County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, together with the usual good contingent of local men.

Store bullocks sold to a Continental-cross average of £898, with a native average of £997. The high of £1,340 fell to a Blonde-cross from the Fox farming family in Clitheroe, who were also a responsible for two further top breed prices with a Limousin-cross at £1,280 and a British Blue-cross at £1,260. Gargrave's KP Drinkall chipped in with the top price pen, four Aberdeen Angus bullocks each knocked down at £1,080.

Store heifers averaged £837 per head overall for Continental-cross entries, with a native average of £782. The pick on price at £1,450 was a British Blue-cross from KG Wilkinson, of Out Rawcliffe, Preston, who sold further same way bred entries at £1,400 and £1,360. AC Ward & Partners, of Grantley, produced the top price pen of three Charolais heifers, which each achieved £1,130.

The pick of the breeding cattle was a Limousin cow with Limousin calf at foot from John Tennant, of Bordley, which sold for £1,500.