| 2016-06-22 |    |
Strong Prices in the Dairy Ring Hints at Improving Milk Trade
There was a strong showing in the dairy ring at the Craven Dairy Auction at Skipton Auction Mart on Monday June 20.
The vendors put forward a healthy show of 19 milkers, and met with a much improved trade, suggesting green shoots of a recovery in the liquid milk trade.
The show was sponsored by Trouw Nutrition, Woldmarsh and NMR, and was kindly judged by Andrew and Christine Morphett who farm dairy and sheep at Huby, near Leeds. They selected a newly calven pedigree heifer from Richard Walker of East Morton as best in show. The fortnight calved heifer, giving 32 litres, was sired by their stock bull Enchanted Ramshot which was brought at Skipton mart and was out of their homebred Morton Velux Queenie.
Champion and reserve
The Walkers have been attending the mart for several years, and although they’ve had plenty of reserve champions, this was their first overall winner. It sold for £1,750 to Ken and Lynne Throup of Woofa Bank, Silsden Moor.
Sally Wellock of Oakworth took second and third with two sweet heifers, one making £1,600 and the other the best price of the day at £1,850. Both were competitively bid for, but eventually sold to John Howard of Heslaker.
David Leeming of Burnt Yates near Harrogate topped the cow class and received reserve champion, with his 32 litre second calver reaching £1,500 and selling to the judges.
Andrew Jennings of the Abbeyhouse Herd sold a sweet 31kg heifer to £1,400 to Frank Wrathall, and Peter Baul of Bishop Thornton saw his heifer just miss out on a prize but sell for a solid price of £1,680 to the Throup family.
The incalf heifers were hard fought over, with Olivers of Darley taking first prize and a grand price of £1,380 for a July calving heifer when selling to David Shuttleworth
The next Dairy Sale is July 4, with entries requested the week before for catalogue purposes.
Rearing Calves good trade throughout the sale
There was also a good show of 83 head in the weekly sale of calves, and they met a strong trade right the way through the sale.
Graham France of Hightown had the pick of the trade with 10 Friesian Bulls between two and four weeks averaging £179.2 per head.
He also topped the Black and White prices at £250, £230 and £205 against an average of £101.18.
Richard Spence of Sutton sold a fine specimen at £210 and Stephen Marshall of West End received £210 for one of his. Black and Whites averaged 29.5 days of age.
There was a wide variety of beef breeds present with Simmentals, Blondes, Limousins, British Blues and Aberdeen Angus all on the receiving end of a strong trade.
The Bentley Family of Thirsk achieved the highest price of the day, with a Blue Bull going for £430. They also had the second highest price - a Limousin going for £415. They sold another to £410, a price also reached by Richard Spence of Sutton.
Jonny and Simon Moon of Wigglesworth sold a strong packet of blues, of which all the bulls were in the late £300s and peaking at £395. Robert Metcalfe of Brearton was also in the mix at £380.
Top Blonde bull was sold by N&R Sutcliffe of Todmorden for £305, and he also had the top Meuse Rhine Issel for £180.
The highest selling Simmentals came from Chris Harrison of Elsack, with a bull calf reaching £360 and a heifer calf £330.
H Bradley and Son of Hartwith topped the Aberdeen Angus bull calves at £240, and Richard Spence had the highest Aberdeen Angus heifer at £305.
The average price of Continental calves was £336.4, and it’s worth considering that they averaged 41 days of age right through the sale.
