A BUMPER bovine entry approaching 450 head, up over 100 on the fortnight, was consigned at Skipton Auction Mart’s latest midweek Wednesday cattle sale, when a top price of £3,200 was recorded for one of 31 beef breeding stock, a three-year-old pedigree Limousin bull from Mark Walker, Hartlington, going to Paul Newbould, Dallowgill, on Wednesday (August 16).

 Other section entries also sold well, to £2,800 (av £2,314) for pedigree Limousin cows with bull calves, again from Mr Walker, £2,080 for a Limousin-x heifer with Charolais-x heifer calf and to £1,900 for Aberdeen-Angus cows with both bull and heifer calves at foot.

Among the 311 feeding cattle, 267 stores sold to a similar trade on the fortnight, with flesh and size still looking dearest. Suckler-bred Continental bullocks met a keen ringside, Charolais from Clitheroe brothers Peter and Edward Fox trading to £1,660 and £1,600, with suckler-bred heifers once more popular among buyers, Jeff Pickles, Chapel-le-Dale, again to the fore with Limousin heifers to £1,510.

Angus bullocks sold to £1,430 from Joey and Helen Drinkall, Chorley, many pens selling at £1,400, again for flesh, while Angus heifers sold to £1,385 from MR&GP Beresford, Halton West.

Store bullocks sold to an overall Continental-x average of £1,220, natives averaging £1,152 and black and whites £1,036, with respective store heifer averages of £1,227, £1,072 and £1,118.

Although a lighter turnout of both young feeding bulls and prime cattle – farmers were taking advantage of the weather to catch up with field work – trade for the former was slightly up on the fortnight in line with an improvement in finished bull prices. Of the late Spring-born and dairy-bred beef bulls, heavy Continentals were £1,700, medium keep £1,250-£1,450 and lightweight Continentals £950-£1,100, with £1,145 the overall average for Continentals.

In the prime ring, 680-740kg bullocks from Hargreaves Farm, Walton-le-Dale, sold from 293-297p/kg and to a per head high of £2,163, while a 530kg heifer from Ben Townsend made 323.5p/kg, £1,743.

Plenty of four-figure prices among the beef-bred feeding cows, which averaged £1,228, saw a top of £1,690 for a British Blue from Jan Feather, Hainworth Shaw, Keighley, also selling others at £1,580 and £1,540.