| 2016-01-29 |    |
Mason Bluefaced Leicesters Dominate Skipton
A brace of Bluefaced Leicester gimmer hoggs secured principal honours for the Oddacres flock of Embsay’s John and Claire Mason at Skipton Auction Mart’s annual winter fixture for breed females, also the first registered sheep breed show and sale of 2016. (Wed, Jan 27)
The red rosette-winning Oddacres H46 was by Ilkley Moor G27, from the Ellis Bros flock on Addingham Moorside. The sire was himself a product of semen taken from the Masons’ highly regarded Z7 Smearsett tup, a prolific producer of past Skipton prize winners, and put into another Ellis Bros Smearsett ewe.
Judging in progress
The victor, whose own dam is by a Kilnstown ram acquired from his Cumbrian breeders, sold for £350 to show judge Ian Lancaster, of Wiswell, Clitheroe.
The runner-up, Oddacres H28, came from a ewe sired by a Low Tipalt ram also bred in Cumbria by Ron and Fran Wilson, out of an Asby Hall-sired dam. It made £200 on joining M&K Farrar, of Healaugh, Tadcaster. They also sold a third gimmer lamb by the same Low Tipalt sire for £280 to M&G German, of Middleton-in-Lonsdale in the Lune Valley.
The Masons were breaking a stranglehold on the annual showcase held by the breeders of their renowned Z7 Smearsett, the North Craven-based Booth family, of Old Hall Cottage, Feizor, who had been champions for previous four years in succession.
At the latest renewal, father and son David and Robin Booth had to settle for third prize with their DO15-sired gimmer hogg, Smearsett HO43, though they did clinch top price honours by a wide margin when Addingham’s Richard Mawson secured their charge for £1,000.
The eight BFL gimmer hoggs on parade averaged £457 per head overall, with the show forming part of Skipton’s second fortnightly Wednesday sheep sale of 2016, which attracted an entry of 1,149 head, among them 951 store and gimmer lambs and 190 in-lamb ewes.
Store sheep sold to a very fast trade, with strong hoggs in good demand and Michael and Elaine Dugdale, of Giggleswick, topping at £76.50 with a Beltex pen, while Andrew Fisher, of Pateley Bridge, also caught the eye with £72 per head Texel lambs and £71 Beltex. The overall average for store lambs was a shade above £49 per head, with gimmer lambs averaging £50.75.
A successful reduction sale of in-lamb ewes staged on behalf of Thomas Binns, from Downham, Clitheroe, saw his Mule shearlings carrying twins sell at £140, 2+3 crop sheep £110-£120 and correct sheep £95-£98.
