Top lamb prices at auction (From The Northern Echo)
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Top lamb prices at auction
3:07pm Tuesday 20th September 2011 in Farming News
BRINGING HOME THE BACON: The champion pen of ten Nemsa mule gimmer lambs with, from left, buyer Val Brown and vendors Steven and Rob Walker
OUTSTANDING prices were achieved at the opening seasonal highlight for Mule ewe lambs at Skipton Auction Mart.
The overall average selling price of the 6,235 gimmer lambs presented by members of the North of England Mule Sheep Association (Nemsa) was £120.51 per head – almost £29 per head higher than last year’s fixture, which was itself nearly £20 a head more than in 2009.
Prices peaked at £245 per head, with the scene set when the first pen of lambs were knocked down for £134 each.
A total of 26 pens sold at £150 a head or more. General trade for tupping lambs was £130 to £150, medium lambs £120 to £130 and running lambs £108 to £120.
Only six pens of lambs sold for under £100 a head throughout the day.
Many felt it was the best trade since Nemsa began staging its annual fixtures at Skipton 27 years ago.
With more than 20 pens of ten in the show classes, the champions were shown by Geoff Walker, Dunsop Bridge, and sold at £222 each to Martin and Val Brown, of Newtonle- Willows, Bedale.
Top price honours in the 10s,and entire show,at £245 per head fell to the second prize pen from Ashley and Rachel Caton, Otterburn.
The buyer was Joe Jackson, from Lancashire, who turns 90 next year and said he will train sheep dogs on his new acquisitions.
The Catons won the championship title for 20 Mules with their victors leading those prices at £185 each when joining Claire Morris, of Barnard Castle.
Jeff Throup, Skipton branch Nemsa chairman, said: “There is a general shortage of breeding sheep throughout the country and our opening fixture clearly illustrates the huge interest in them at this time, especially Mule gimmers.”
