Gambles a sure bet with five-timer at Skipton Christmas cast ewe show
Annual festive shows for cast ewes and cull cows again followed hot on the heels of the big Christmas primestock fixtures at Skipton Auction Mart.
Yet again, the headline performers in the former were husband and wife, Ken and Hazel Gamble, of Brickyard Farm, Easingwold, who presented the cast ewe champions for a remarkable fifth consecutive year. (Mon, Nov 27)
Their pen of five pure-bred Texels, picked out by judge David Palmer, from Scarborough, sold for top price in show of £129.50 per head to Lancashire Direct Halal Meat in Blackburn, with the Gamlbles also selling a second Texel pen at £109.50 each.
With trade sharper, the first prize horned and reserve champion pen of Lonks from the Westall family in Briercliffe, Burnley, also headed the class prices at £64.50 per head, selling to Yorkshire Halal Meats for its Keighley supermarket.
The red rosette-winning Mule pen from John and Claire Wright, of Airton, made £78.50, bettered at £79.50 by the top price pen from Threshfield’s Angus Dean.
Over 400 cast sheep were penned for sale, cull ewes selling to an overall average of £50.56 per head and cast rams £66.38.
Champion in the Christmas cast cattle show was a four-year-old home-bred British Blue-cross-Longhorn cow from James and Deborah Hall, of Darnbrook, which made £925, or 128.5p/kg.
Overall reserve champion was the first prize black and white cow, a ten-year-old British Friesian from brothers David and Richard Pickersgill, who trade as G Pickersgill & Sons at Intake Side Farm, Hawksworth. This headed its section at £891, or 116.5p/kg.
The 53 cast cattle sold to an overall average of £689.14 per head, or 104.04p/kg.