Competing buyers help to push trade up for rearing calves

And with 16 different buyers competing at the ringside they met a strong and improved trade on the week.

A joint top price of £430 was achieved by both Richard Spence, of Sutton-in-Craven, and Lothersdale’s Geoff and Margaret Booth, while John Marshall, of Dacre, was close behind with a £400 sale. All three were British Blue-cross bull calves.

Limousin bull calves from Richard Metcalfe, of Brearton, and the Pickergill brothers, from Guiseley, combined to average £335 per head, with a top of £395 from the latter.

The Brown family, from Ramsgill, headed the heifer prices with a £380 Lincoln Red, with Continental entries peaking at £335 for a Blue-cross heifer, again from John Marshall, who also headed the native prices at £280 with an Aberdeen Angus bull calf.

The overall Continental-cross average was £338.66 per head, with natives averaging just over £197 and black and whites almost £81.

The recent upturn in trade for butchers’ prime cattle was also reflected at Skipton Auction Mart’s Monday weekly sale, when the majority of the 17 under 30-month entries on offer sold to independent regional retail butcher buyers.

Top by-weight price fell to a 490kg British Blue-cross heifer from Ben Townsend, of Laneshawbridge, which sold to Stanforths Butchers in Skipton for 242p/kg, or £1,185, while the day’s leading gross price of £1,296, or 227.5p/kg, was achieved by a second 570kg Blue-cross heifer from BA&B Perkins, of Oughtibridge, near Sheffield. The buyer was Keelham Farm Shop, which claimed five cattle in total for its Skipton and Thornton shops.

Stanforths bought three in all, with two also falling to Edwards Farm Butchers in Burnley, while Northowram’s Charlie Clough picked up another for his Stainthorpe’s Family Butchers shop in Queensbury.

Of the 59 cast cattle on parade, the majority were cull cows and these met a sharp trade, headed up by a 715kg Limousin entry from John and Claire Mason’s Oddacres herd in Embsay, which made £1,040, or 145.5p/kg.