VENDORS who responded to Skipton Auction Mart’s call to bring sheep to market for the final pre-Christmas Monday sale were well rewarded with a lamb trade dearer on the week.

Lightweight horned lambs were especially good to sell and hill lambs sold well all day, with several pens topping £100. Handy weighted lambs were also a sharp trade and proved dearer as the sale progressed.

Heavy lambs were either side of £90, while some topped £100.

The 3,719 lambs forward sold to an overall average of £79.71 per head, or 188.7p/kg, with plenty of Continental pens achieving three figures. Top call of £113 per head and 272.5p/kg twice fell to Beltex pens from Paul Simpson, of Bolton-by-Bowland.

A total of 596 cast ewes and rams were also entered, with cull ewe trade especially hot when averaging a staggering £98.68 each, with a high of £141.50 for a Texel pen from Simon and Avril Wallbank, of Bradley.

Cast rams averaged £95.31, with another high of £141.50 for another Texel from Matt Mason, of Appletreewick.

* The 25 rearing calves offered for sale at Skipton sold to a high of £435 for a British Blue-cross heifer from Lothersdale’s Geoff Booth, a consistent leading performer in his local calf ring.

He also presented the top price Blue-cross bull calf at £420 and the highest priced £110 black and white bull calf.

Of the native breeds, Aberdeen Angus entries from S Nuttall, of Blackburn, headed the prices in both sections with a bull calf at £295 and a heifer calf at £220.

Continental-cross calves sold to an overall average of £356 per head, with native breeds averaging £245 and black and whites £45.

* Christmas was both in the air as Skipton Auction Mart staged its annual festive sale of dressed and clean plucked poultry.

An excellent entry of 564 high quality oven-ready birds met a flying trade across the board from turkeys and geese to ducks and heavy chickens.

Turkeys sold to £76 per head, or £4 per pound (av £42.79), geese to £83 per head, or £5.33/lb (av £34.07), ducks to £30 per head or £4.44/lb (av £20.04) and chickens to £36 per head or £2.55/lb (av £30.92)

*Skipton Auction Mart’s final fortnightly store cattle sale of 2014 attracted an entry of 188 head and a high volume of buyers all eager for stock.

The 65 young feeding bulls sold to a Continental- cross average of £945.31 and native average of £760, with a top price of £1,270 for a Limousin-cross from John Lancaster, of Bordley.

The top price pen of four British Blue-cross bulls from Ian and Stuart Barrett, of Summerbridge, each made £800.

There were 118 bullocks and heifers penned for sale, with the former selling to a Continental-cross average of £916.23 and native average of £928. The leading performer at £1,300 was a Limousin-cross from Peter and Edward Fox in Clitheroe.

Store heifers sold to a Continental-cross average of £930 and native average of £655, peaking at £1,200 for another Limousin-cross from Sheila Mason’s Keasden Head herd. The top price pen of four Charolais heifers from John Turner, of Draughton, each sold away at £1,155, with the same vendor also selling a second same way bred pen of four at £1,125 each.

All cattle were good to sell, said to bode well for Skipton’s opening New Year sale on Wednesday, for which entries already total 1,000 head, with a total anticipated entry of some 1,250 head.