MULTIPLE past champion and regular prize winner, Richard Pickles, of Bent Laithe Farm Cottage, Lothersdale, was again to the fore at the Craven Feather Auction Spring show and sale at Skipton Auction Mart on Saturday.

He presented the first prize and reserve champion pen of bantams, a trio of White Wyandottes bred last year from his own exhibition stock.

Richard, who also breeds large White Wyandottes and White Sussex bantams, works as a motor mechanic at Bristol Street Motors in Cross Hills. His charges sold for the day’s top call of £200, the highest Craven Feather Auction price achieved for some considerable time, to regular Skipton buyer Geoff Marston, from Wetherby.

However the championship was awarded to a trio of 2015-bred Black Orpingtons, a cockerel and two pullets, from first-time vendor Robert Bristow, of Murton York.

While just 23, Robert has been successfully breeding poultry for 15 years, rearing Rosecombs, Old English Game Birds and a few Orpingtons. Previous successes in the poultry show arena include a best in show at Driffield and reserve at Gargrave Show.

Robert hails from a Texel and Beltex sheep farming family and saw his Skipton title winners, which had earlier taken first prize in the large fowl show class, courtesy of 17-year-old show judge Reece Jowett, of Queensbury, an agricultural student at Bishop Burton College, sell for £85 to Giles Smith, a new buyer from Cleveland. Robert also sold a trio of Buff Orpingtons for £70.

J Hindle, of Oswaldtwistle, sold a pair of White Wyandottes for £110 to J Dutton, of Huddersfield. The same vendor also sold a trio of Wheaton Maran at £50, along with a trio of 20-week-old Rhode Island Red pullets at £45.

The first prize pen of waterfowl, a pair of White Call Ducks from HJ Walmsley, of Pilling, made £45. Other leading prices included four Gold Top pullets at £50 and a quartet of Silkies at £42. Skipton’s next poultry sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 21, with further information available from the mart’s Ted Ogden.

The day also featured ever-popular Agri-Trader auctions of machinery, reclaim and salvage, furniture and collectibles, which again attracted a huge turnout, along with the monthly livestock collective sales of stirks, weaned calves and young store cattle.

Machinery lines peaked at £5,200 for a Case 4210 loader tractor consigned by J and B Brayshaw, of Black Lane Ends, while other tractors sold to £2,400 for a Case 585 and £1,600 for an International 685 XL.

A Graham Edwards livestock trailer entered by Settle’s Colin Sutcliffe made £1,800, a Primex 1100 gallon vacuum tanker £1,400 and a Teagle straw chopper £1,300. The stone section saw a top price of £400 for a pallet of Yorkshire flags.

The monthly livestock collective attracted a turnout of 130 head of cattle. Heifers sold to a top of £765 for a Blonde from J Snowden, of Stanbury, while steers peaked at £750 for a Limousin from Scottish vendor J Finlayson, of Dumfries, who was also responsible for the top price Hereford bull at £480.