The real eye-catchers and keenly contested were a run of exceptional pure-bred Charollais ewes with Charollais and Beltex lambs from Neville Smith, of Lothersdale. Top price per outfit was £620 for a 2 shear with single Beltex-x tup lamb, followed at £480 for another 2 shear single, and £400 for a shearling with twins. Other outfits from the same home sold well at £300 and £240 twice.
Killinghall’s Richard Umpleby presented his usual good run of Suffolk and Continental ewes, all with twin lambs, his two top selling pens away at £280 per outfit, while Winsbury Farm Partners in Leyburn produced Beltex ewes with twins at £250, others with singles at £230.
Older Continental sheep with singles sold at £140-£160, those with twins at £180-£220, while North of England Mule ewes broken mouth sold either side of £200 with twins, and in the £140s to £160s for singles.
Prime sheep trade followed suit and was said to be ‘absolutely electric,’ with 2,122 prime and lightweight hoggs proving much dearer on the week when averaging 290.7p/kg, aided by an SQQ of 300p/kg, with the overall selling average an exhilarating £125.18 per head. 
The best end made 350p/kg-plus, with four pens hitting a heady £4 per kilo or more, two of them Beltex from Henry Atkinson, of Felliscliffe, one topping at 402.4p/kg, with a leading gross price £170 for Texels from SP Woolhouse & Sons, of Doncaster. No less than 41 pens made £150 plus.
Trade for 387 cast ewes was said to be on fire, again with a full line-up of buyers going head to head. Heavies, lean and horned ewes were all dearer, selling to £151.50 per head for Texels from AlistairJenkinson, of Langbar, with an overall cull ewe average of £89.70. More are required. Cast rams averaged £96.56.
Another high quality turnout of 14 under 30-month clean cattle from regular vendors were snapped up by familiar faces ringside. Worthy of note was the average weight of cattle, with nine heifers averaging 590kg making 256p/kg and five steers averaging 580kg selling at 254p/kg. 
The top price per head 620kg Blonde-x heifer from Threshfield’s Charles and Richard Kitching made £1,603, or 258.5p/kg, to Ralph Pearson Wholesale Butchers in Bradford. From the same home came the leading price per kilo steer, a Limousin-x sold for 260.5p/kg, or £1,524, to Robertshaw’s Farm Shop in Thornton, whose James Robertshaw also secured the top price heifer and overall top price per kilo, another Limousin-x from the Critchley family in Hutton at 261.5p/kg, or £1,491.
Trade for 19 cull cows stepped up again, with some saleable young cows or well finished sorts among the entry. Pick of the per kilo trade at 167.5p/kg, or £1,131, was a milking Simmental-cross heifer at just 32-months-old from Chris  Harrison, of Elslack, while top gross at £1,167 was a 930kg Holstein cow from Brereton’s Robert Metcalfe, who also sold a nine-year-old Limousin cast bull weighing 940kg for 155.5p/kg, or £1,462. Feeding cows were a very good trade with lean cows selling to 115.5p, the section producing an overall average of 123.80p/kg, or £822.32 per head.
Thirty rearing calves met another good trade, with two new vendors present. Topping at £445 was a Limousin-x bull calf from Hayton & Stocks in Bolton Abbey, while ten British Blue-x bulls averaged £356, selling to £430 twice from Richard Wright in Airton and Eastby’s Andrew Ayrton.
The Stevenson family from Redcar, one of the new vendors, made an immediate impact when selling a Blue bull calf for £410 and topping both native sections with a Hereford bull at £385 and an Aberdeen-Angus heifer at the same price.
Online produce sales will now be held over two days every fortnight, the next on Wednesday and Thursday, February 24 & 25.