A large show of 64 breeding cattle among the 419 head at CCM Skipton’s fortnightly cattle sale included a production sale of pedigree Beef Shorthorn heifers with calves at foot from the Beautry herd of Stuart Currie in Rathmell, which met with keen interest at the ringside.

All the calves had been sired by the Beautry stock bull, Excalibur, Beef Shorthorn first prize winner in the National Calf Show at Agri Expo 2011.

Top call of the crop at £2,400 fell to Rowanlea Erika, a two-and-a-half-year-old red and white daughter of Cairnsmore Zidane.

Offered for sale with her red bull calf, the duo joined Tracy Severn’s Highlee Beef Shorthorn herd in Barkisland, Halifax.

The Roan heifer, Rowanlea Edith, again by Zidane, with her Roan heifer calf at foot, sold to W Denham, of Barnard Castle, for £2,280. The Beautry production sale achieved an overall per head average £1,782.

While the general turnout was more mixed in quality than of late, trade was decent, with feeders looking to keep fields and sheds topped up.

The 102 young bulls sold to an overall Continental-x average of £963.79 per head and native average of £606.58. A British Blue-x from Paul Simpson, of Wigglesworth, headed the individual prices at £1,390, while the top price pen of three Saler-x bulls from Beeston Hall Farms, of Ripponden, each achieved £1,000.

The Continental-x average for store bullocks was £1055.80 each, with a native average of £738.50, peaking at £1,295 for a Limousin-x from the Fox farming family in Clitheroe. TE&S Ridding, of Kirkby Lonsdale, presented the two top price bullock pens of three and five Limousin-x, which sold at £1,150 and £1,110 per head respectively.

Store heifers sold to a Continental-x average of £835.56 each and to a joint high of £1,230 for another Limousin-x from the Fox’s.