Gordon Banks saves a prize pen for store lamb show
The fortnightly sale of store lambs at Craven Cattle Mart saw 66 buyers throughout the day with long keep wintering lambs noticeably dearer than two weeks ago.
A show-stopping pen of 25 Swaledales by CCM yardsman Gordon Banks of Barden took the red rosette and sold at £38 per head.
Gordon, who has 350 sheep at home, keeps half his flock pure Swaledales and the other half are bred with Blue Faced Leicesters as male gimmers. He came second in the same show last year, and has also been a yardsman at CCM for 27 years.
The top placed Dalesbred pen was shown by Messrs Hayton and Stocks of Bolton Abbey, selling for £45 per head.
Mule lambs averaged £50.97 with a higher percentage of small lambs in the sample, but there was plenty of competition for medium keep mule lambs. They topped at £59 per head from AE Schindler of Thorpe for Lonk bred mules, £56 per head for 179 from Granville and Paul Fairburn, Marriforth for Swale bred Mules and last man in the ring V Verity & Son of West End at £54.50 per head, showing trade was consistent all day long.
Continental lambs were also noticeably dearer in the longer keep lambs with anything fleshy working into the late £50s and early £60s all day long. TB Moorhouse of Dacre topped at £72 per head for a pen of Beltex lambs, with Brian Lund topping the Gimmer lamb trade with a sweet pen of Beltex at £89 per head.
The next sale is on Wednesday, October 7, with a huge entry of 10,000 expected. Entries close on Monday, September 29.