Calderdale show win and top price coup at Skipton Hereford females fixture
Pedigree Hereford females turned out for their second annual weekend fixture at Skipton Auction Mart, when a small, but select turnout of cattle, which continue to grow in popularity across the UK, achieved virtual total clearance. (Sat, Nov 7)
Taking in the fixture for the first time was Miss Heather Whittaker, who runs the 60-strong Coley herd in Norwood Green, Halifax, established 14 years ago. The Calderdale breeder was represented by a cow and calf outfit which first took first prize in the pen-judged show class before heading to the sale ring with herdsman Andrew Hughes and achieving top call of 2,000gns.
The four-year-old cow, Grangefell Peach, a Cumbrian-bred daughter of Ervie L1 Achiever, was sold with her second calf at foot, the April-born bull, Coley 1 Templars, by Moeskaer Vegas, and with her third calf inside her, this by Solbakkens Patrick and due in May next year. The buyer was Robert Dick, of Freckleton on the Fylde Coast.
Local husband and wife, David and Iris Boothman, of Home Farm, Halton East, who won last year’s inaugural show with an in-calf heifer by their then new stock bull, Hoghton View 1 Cameron, returned with another trio by the same sire, all scanned in-calf to Coley 1 Sullivan, acquired last July from Heather Whittaker’s herd.
The couple stood runners-up in this year’s show, judged by Skipton’s Geoff Lawn, with their March, 2019, heifer Halton 1 Freesia, which was the only unsold entry, though the Boothmans did head the in-calf prices at £1,250 with their April, 2019, Halton 1 Fiona, out of a Romany 1 Lightning Bolt-sired dam, also making 1,100gns with their other April-born heifer, Halton 1 Fiora. Both fell to the same Cumbrian buyer, P Whitehead, from Cautley, near Sedbergh.
The third prize winner was a ten-month-old heifer from another Calderdale breeder, Lauren Boulton, of the Stoner herd in Wainstalls. Her January-born daughter of the highly regarded Netherhall 1 Jack made 760gns when falling to Nigel Pepper, of Laneshawbridge, a familiar face at the mart who was buying the heifer on behalf of his granddaughter.