Red Rose clean sweep at Skipton shearling gimmer show
Both principal prize winners at Skipton Auction Mart’s second annual shearling gimmer show and sale were landing top honours at the fixture for the first time. (Tues, Sept 15).
Thomas and Sheila Binns, of Hecklin Farm, Downham, Clitheroe, sent out the first prize pen of ten Mules, while David Lucas and Angela Nairey, of Bank Hey Farm, Blackburn, were responsible for the red rosette-winning pen of ten pure-bred Texels.
The Binns’s victors were all acquired at the previous year’s Skipton NEMSA fixtures and returned to near their place of origin when sold for £162 per head to WT Dewhurst, of Waddington. They were also responsible for the second prize pen, which made £156 each.
In total, Mr and Mrs Binns penned a top-notch run of 200 Mule shearlings and 2-shear ewes, selling further shearling pens at £152 and £150, along with 2-shear pens at £144, top price in class, £142 three times, £141 and £140. The overall selling average of their consignment was £146 per head.
The Lucas & Nairey partnership – they have been farming together for some 34 years and have 400 Texel ewes this season - saw its prize-winning pen, all home-breds by a selection of stock rams, make £170 each when joining Gareth Daniels, from Little Barningham in Norfolk, who also bought a second pen from the same breeders.
In addition, Mr Daniels paid the day’s top price of £172 per head for another Texel shearling gimmer pen from Easingwold’s Ken Gamble. He was also in the thick of the action at the same day’s annual British Charollais Sheep Society show and sale of commercial rams when securing both the champion and reserve champion.
Back with the gimmer shearlings, Ann Myers, who trades in partnership with her two daughters, Valerie Mayes and Dianne Firenyi, at West View Farm, Winksley, near Ripon, narrowly failed to win the Continental show class for the third year in succession. They were runners-up at the latest renewal with another Texel pen that made £165 per head.
Standing third in class were Lambert and Joy Coverdale, of Beckwithshaw, Harrogate, with their charges knocked down at £132 each, a price equalled by the third prize pen in the Mule show class from Nick Thompson, of Stanbury.
Show judge was Giggleswick’s Michael Dugdale and sponsors JACS Trade & DIY Warehouse in Skipton, WE Jameson Feeds, and Carrs Billington.
A total of 2,643 ewes and shearlings were penned for the fortnightly sale, with good trade seen for quality sorts, while commercial types were also a better trade than the previous sale.
Texel shearling gimmers averaged £120 per head, Mules £127, Suffolk £105, Charollais £93 – John Turner, of Draughton, was top price achiever in these two classes at £110 and £115 respectively – and Llleyn £107
Skipton’s next breeding ewe and gimmer shearling sale on Tuesday, September 29, includes the annual special sale of half-bred and horned ewes, broken mouthed, correct below and feeding ewes.