Startover Seaver Annabel, a daughter of R-E-W Seaver, out of Startover Whistler Annabel, came to market 11 days calved and giving 31 litres, going on to sell for the day’s top price of £1,900 when returning to her Brimham Lodge breeders. Mr Jennings also sold a second newly calven heifer for £1,620 to Mark Goodall in Tong, Bradford.

Show judge Colin Whitelock, of Gargrave, chose the second prize newly calven heifer as his reserve champion. It came from Bishop Thornton’s Peter Baul, who runs the Ravensgate pedigree Holstein herd at Watergate Farm.

Ravensgate Honesty 155 is by Penn-England Garrison, a Genus sire the vendor has often used to good effect, out of Ravensgate Dolman Honesty. The Honesty line has well-proven breeding lines stretching back over half a century and the runner-up, 17 days calved and giving 34 litres, made £1,790 when joining Alf Townsend in Southfield, Burnley.

The Robinson family, of Eldroth, stepped up with another classy newly calven home-bred commercial heifer, which earned a yellow rosette as third in class, selling for £1,580, again to Mr Goodall.

First and second prizes in the show class for newly calven cows both fell to David Leeming, of Burnt Yates. The red rosette winner, a third calver giving 50 litres, sold  away well at £1,800 to Wigan’s Tom Green, who also paid £1,640 for the runner-up.

While there were just three in-calf cattle forward, trade was notably strong, averaging £1,433 per head. They also had their own show class, won by RA&HE Simpson, Easingwold, with an August-due heifer that sold locally for £1,470 to John Howard in Heslaker.

I Oliver & Partners, of Darley, took second and third prizes, achieving selling prices of £1,440 and £1,420 respectively, both also falling to Mr Howard.

A standalone show class for coloured cows saw Skipton regulars David and Pauline Brown, of Longside Farm, Ramsgill, take first and second prizes with home-bred newly calven Brown Swiss entries from their Luna pedigree herd.

The red rosette winner, 19 days calved and giving 35 litres, sold for £1,500, with the runner-up making £1,230. The Browns came out of milking a year ago and are selling their cows as they calve.

David Leeming took third prize with another Brown Swiss heifer that headed the class prices at £1,520. The eight Brown Swiss entries averaged £1,218 per head.

With 50 head forward, pedigree newly calven heifers averaged £1,454 and their commercial counterparts £1,405. Pedigree newly calven dairy cows sold to £1,490 for an entry from the Lawson family in Arthington, while the 14 newly calven commercial cows on offer averaged £1,396 per head.







Dairy-bred calves sell well....







Black and white youngsters comprised 48 of the 67-strong entry at Monday’s weekly rearing calf sale. With an average age of 33 days, they achieved a robust selling average of just over £103 per head, peaking at £175 for a bull calf from Lothersdale’s Geoff and Margaret Booth.

Trade was again extremely buoyant, with Continental-cross entries averaging £428 per head across the board, led at £530 by a British Blue-cross heifer calf from Richard Sutcliffe, of Queensbury, who also headed the bull calf prices at £485 with another Blue.

Native breed entries also sold well, in particular a nice run of Aberdeen Angus youngsters all around 42-days-old from the Hartley family in Bolton Abbey, who had the top price bull and heifer calves at £375 and £350 respectively. The overall native average was £318 per head.