Chadwick & Leaver bull calf clinches CCM Skipton Christmas title
Skipton Auction Mart’s annual Christmas rearing calf show attracted a cracking entry of 111 head and heady trade to match across all sections. (Mon, Nov 26)
Show champion was Marcus Chadwick, who trades as Chadwick and Leaver at Higher Town House Farm, Southfield, near Burnley. His seven-week-old Simmental-bred bull calf caught the eye of the show judge, Will Gore-Browne, of SIlsden Moor, and he later claimed it in the sale ring for £440.
Mr Chadwick is a seventh generation commercial dairy farmer and the family currently milks 170 Holstein Friesian cattle.
Multiple past rearing calf champions, the Sowray dairy farming family – brothers Shaun, Peter and Paul, from Bowes Green Farm, Bishop Thornton - were again prominent among the prizes, picking up all three rosettes in the British Blue-cross heifer calf show class, along with the first prize Blue-cross bull calf.
It was their red rosette-winning heifer, by a bull from local frozen bovine semen and embryos supplier Philip Naylor, who runs Cattle Genie in Ilkley, that headed the day’s selling prices at £470 when claimed by DA Platts, of Goole.
Another regular high price vendor and multiple prize winner, Church Farm Enterprises, of Burton Top Farm, Burton Leonard, saw their Blue-cross heifers reach £440 three times, with a section average of £355.95.
Continental bull calves were also readily sought after, with Martyn Jennings, of Cowling, selling the top price Blue-cross bull calf for £460 and the Sowray’s making £455 and £440 with their first and second prize Blue-cross bulls. The section average was £346.48.
Colin Whitelock, of Gargrave, was responsible for the first and second prize Limousin-cross bull calves, with the six-week-old red rosette winner, by an Embsay-based Mason family Oddacres bull, topping the class prices at £450 when again falling to the judge. Mr Whitelock also had the top price £430 Limousin-cross heifer calf. The overall Continental-cross selling was £338.61.
Native calves again sold well, with an average of £248 for bulls and £143 for Aberdeen-Angus heifers, with a section top of £340 for a strong Angus bull calf from Hayton & Stocks in Bolton Abbey. The Hartley family, from Beamsley, also caught the eye with a £280 Hereford heifer calf. The overall section average was £202.47.
A much better display of black and white calves saw an equally improved trade, producing an overall average of £71.67 and a section high of £115 for a bull calf from AJ&A Walmsley, of Ripley.
The Christmas show was sponsored by Carrs Billington Agriculture, represented by Linda Beckwith, who presented the Arthur Newman Trophy, to victor Marcus Chadwick. Full results and prices are at www.ccmauctions.com