Robert Crisp milkers take principal honours at opening Craven Dairy Auction
Malhamdale’s Robert Crisp, of Nelson House, Calton, was crowned both champion and reserve with a brace of newly calven entries at the opening Craven Dairy Auction show and sale of 2019. (Mon, Jan 14)
He bagged the title with an eight days-calved 25-litre second calver cow, a daughter of Reagancrest S Isley, and the reserve championship with a 24-litre 11 days-calved heifer by Zelgadis. Both are Genus dairy sires. The principals headed the selling prices at £1,800 and £1,880 respectively, both heading to Queensbury with regular dairy buyer Richard Sutcliffe.
A small show of seven dairy cattle met a decent trade set by a healthy contingent of buyers. Newly calven heifers averaged £1,425 and newly calven cows £1,550.
Show judge was Rob Marshall, of Dacre, Harrogate, with National Milk Records (NMR) renewing its sponsorship for another year.
The same morning’s weekly sale of 30 dairy-bred rearing calves also met a very handy trade for forward entries. Topping the bill at £440 was the first calf into the sales ring, a strong British Blue-cross bull from Joss Lancaster, of Horton-in-Craven, claimed by regular buyer Andrew Houseman, of Dacre.
The same vendor was also responsible for the £330 top price Blue-cross heifer calf. Despite subdued demand for Continental heifers of late, six buyers at the ringside helped boost the best heifers above £300. The overall Continental-cross selling average was £302.49.
Limousin-cross calves peaked at £365 for a bull from the Guiseley-based Pickersgill brothers, while Aberdeen-Angus bull calves averaged £251.67 up to £260 for one from the Hartley family in Bolton Abbey. The overall native average was £226.50.