HUSBAND and wife Paul and Janet Bolland, and son James, made it a hat-trick with their third successive championship, also standing reserve champions once again, at Skipton Auction Mart’s fortnightly Craven Dairy Auction as they continued to disperse their high producing, highly sought after herd from Dykelands Farm, Airton. (Mon, July 24)

Show judge Ian Briggs, from Hawksworth, Guiseley, picked out a 52kg fifth calver as overall victor, one with a tremendous udder with great milk veins and strength and capacity throughout and one which vendor Paul Bolland noted as it sold to Gargrave’s Colin Whitelock for £1,680 “is the type of cow they don't make any more - looking like she has another five calves in her.”

The four cows on offer, all from the Bollands, averaged £1,800, led by the reserve champion, a 35kg second calver by Vortex Lexxi Foxx which made joint top price of £2,250, heading to neighbouring West Yorkshire and Tong with Mark and Karen Goodall.

Although headline prices were not particularly noteworthy, trade was solid, eight of the 14 head forward getting away at £2,000 or more and all five vendors present securing selling prices in this category.

At £2,200, Sammie Sugden, of Laycock, Keighley, led the trade among the other exhibitors with her 29kg Melary Fuel daughter, bred by Johnathan Sharp in his Tewitthall herd and backed by her three nearest dams all being scored EX. She was the pick of Alan and Emily Middleton, Beamsley.

Ian Hall, who trades as J Dibb in Kilnsey, exhibited the third prize heifer in a strong class of seven shown, before heading home to Queensbury with Richard Sutcliffe at £2,100, while achieving the same price were first-time vendors Jack and Stephen Swales, of Hutton Rudby, near Stokesley, with a Wilder Dalliance daughter bred by Alan Goldie, which heads north of the border.

First and second places in the milk heifer class also fell to the Bollands, these making £2,150 and £2,080 respectively, though it was another of their fresh heifers, a Pine Tree London late June calver that commanded the day’s top price of £2,250 when heading to Longridge with Alf Townsend. The overall milk heifer average for ten forward was £1,983.

In the prime cattle sale ring, black and white dairies were also to the fore, an over 30-month entry from Martyn Jennings, Cowling, making £1,237, or 159.5p/kg, cull cows from the same home also selling to £1,089, 148.5p/kg, the section producing a per head top for black and whites of £1,276 from P&RM Sutcliffe, Queensbury, and by-weight high of 161.5p/kg from JG Hall & Son, Gargrave, who also sold a beef-bred British Blue-x at £1,210, 165.5p/kg.

While heat is off cast cow trade in line with a declining factory price, cattle carrying flesh were the pick of the prices and still able to make circa 160p/kg, while the better end of the leaner cows could still achieve 130p/kg-plus, producing an overall cull cow average of 136.44p/kg, or £958.93.

Another sold turnout of 2,400 sheep included a much more commercial offering of 1,652 Spring lambs, with very few smart lambs forward, though the pick of them were still able to make from 300 to 366p/g top, this for a 42kg Texel pen from D&J Carlisle, Cracoe, which grossed £154. Top call per head at £190 fell to Charollais breeder Deborah Witcher, Skewsby, York.

Heavy lambs maintained a good trade, especially for two-thirds bred goods, which could regularly command 278-290p/kg, with the best of the bunch up to 300p/kg, while commercial lambs weighing 36-38kg maintained prices either side of 260p/kg, 40-43kg lambs away at 250-265p/kg, smarter bred sorts exceeding 270p/kg.

The heavier the lamb the dearer they became, bidding keenest for the 48-55kg range, Mark Evans, Steeton, selling pen after pen of 50kg Suffolks at £147-£148. Mule lambs were 240-250/kg with prices per head ranging from £86.50-£102.50. The overall selling average for Spring lambs was £116.66 per head or 263p/kg.

Cast sheep numbered 748 head and with large runs of feeding ewes now beginning to come forward cull ewes traded to an overall average of £106.28, peaking at £247.50 for Texel from RJ&G Umpleby, Killinghall.

The overall white-faced selling average was £128, while Suffolk and Suffolk crosses averaged £153. Mule ewes sold to a top of £117.50 from KG Stapleton, Skipton, Swaledale ewes peaking at £97.50 from P Addyman & Son, Skipton. Cast rams averaged £111.92.