Coverdale repeat coup at Skipton shearling gimmer show
There was a notable double at Skipton Auction Mart’s second annual shearling gimmer show and sale when Lambert and Joy Coverdale and their son, also Lambert, from Crimple Meadow Farm, Beckwithsaw, repeated their Continental class win at the mart’s big shearling gimmer opener last month.
They achieved a second success with a pen of ten home-bred Texels, out of North Country Cheviot Mules, and the red rosette winners sold at £175 per head when joining M&E Lavender, of Catforth, Preston. The Coverdales also sold further Texel shearling pens at £170 and £165.
Fox Farms in Clitheroe, run by brothers Peter, Edward and Robert Fox, presented the third prize pen of Mules, which achieved a section joint top price of £175 per head, matched by a second Fox pen. The second prize winners from JE Thwaite, of Barden, made £160.
The second prize Continental pen from David Lucas and Angela Nairey, of Blackburn, sold at £155, though it was the third prize pen of Texels from Thirsk’s Graham Taylor that achieved the day’s joint top price of £205 per head, equalled by a second pen from the same vendor, plus another at £190. Respective buyers of the joint top price pens were L Newburn, from Halifax, and C Foster, of Thornton, Bradford, who also acquired the £155 pen.
Felliscliffe father and son, Raymond and Robert Johnson, of Summerfield Farm, won the Mules show class with a pen of ten shearlings purchased at the previous year’s North of England Mule Sheep Association (NEMSA) sales at Skipton. These returned home.
The show classes, judged by Pateley Bridge’s Andrew Fisher, formed part of Skipton’s fortnightly Wednesday sheep sale, which attracted a strong turnout of 3,753 ewes and shearlings.
Thomas and Sheila Binns, of Downham, Clitheroe, who won first prize with their Mules last year, were again prominent when selling a shearling pen at £172, along with further shearling pens at £170 twice and £165 twice, plus 2-shear Mules at £155 three times and £150 twice, and 2-shear Texels at £150, £145 and £130.
Also catching the eye with a £190 Texel shearling pen was Ann Myers, who trades in partnership with her two daughters at Winksley, Ripon.
Texel shearlings averaged £148 each and Mules £126, while 2-shear averages were Texel £145 Mule £126 and Suffolk £116. Of the ewes, Mules sold to a high of £108 for a pen from W Richardson, of Kendal, averaging £80, while Texels averaged £90, with a top of £98 for a pen from Francis Caton, of Weston, Otley. Broken mouthed Mule ewes averaged £65 and Texel £59.
Skipton’s next breeding ewe and gimmer shearling sale on Tuesday, September 26, includes the annual special sale of half-bred and horned ewes broken mouthed, correct below and feeding ewes.