FRANKLAND Farms in Rathmell clinched a prime lambs championship and reserve championship double with a brace of Beltex-cross pens at Skipton Auction Mart’s August show and sale on Monday.

The frontrunners were shown by Richard Frankland and his son, Jon, who run the sheep operation at Frankland Farms, whose New Hall Farm will host NSA North Sheep in June next year. All lambs in the two five-strong pens were sired by a pair of Rathbone tups from fellow North Craven breeder Michael Davis, of Eldroth. Both the 41kg victors and the 43kg runners-up sold for £100 per head to show judge George Cropper Jnr for his Sanderson’s Butchers Shop in Baxenden.The Red Rose retail butcher also judged the same day’s monthly prime cattle show, where he again claimed his chosen champion, a 495kg Blonde-cross heifer from the Critchley family, of Mercer Farm, Hutton, near Preston, for £1,374, or 277.5p/kg, top price per kilo.

Back with the prime lambs, the first prize 49kg Suffolk-cross pen of five from John and Claire Wright, who farm in Airton, sold for £98 per head to Swaledale Foods in Skipton, while the first prize pen of ten 47kg Mules from North of England Mule Sheep Association chairman Kevin Wilson, of Blubberhouses, joined Yorkshire Halal Meats for its supermarket in Alice Street, Keighley, at £84 each. Both pens made top price in class.