Gambles roll out champions again at Skipton Christmas cast ewe show
Annual festive shows for cast ewes and cull cows again figured on Skipton Auction Mart’s annual Christmas show programme, when the headline performers were Easingwold husband and wife, Ken and Hazel Gamble, who won the sheep championship for an unprecedented fourth year in succession. (Mon, Nov 29)
The Gambles, of Brickyard Farm, sold their title-winning pen of five pure Texels for top price of £115.50 per head to Yorkshire Halal Meats for its supermarket in Alice Street, Keighley. They also bought the 2015 champions from the Gambles, who sold a second pen this year at £99.50.
Threshfield’s Angus Dean also stormed to two red rosette wins with his Mule and Swaledale ewe pens. The former made £75.50 each.
The cull cow championship fell to David Broadbent, of Green House Farm, Midgley, Halifax, with a six-year-old Limousin-cross cow that also headed the day’s prices at £1,169, or 128.5p/kg.
G Pickersgill & Partners, of Guiseley, won the dairy-bred show class for the second year in succession with a black and white that was another top price achiever at £849, or 112.5p/kg, while the red rosette-winning native-bred cow, an Aberdeen Angus from Peter Shackleton, of Hetton, also sold well at a section-topping £949.
The robust turnout of 62 cull cows sold to an improved overall average on the week of £911.55, or 138.11p/kg.
Getting on for 5,000 prime sheep were also penned for sale on Monday, among them 4,478 prime lambs, which met with a nice trade to average £76.68 per head, or 174.35p/kg, overall. Cull ewes averaged £46.34 and cast rams £55.83.