Price Watch
FROM the Chelford Review, w/e January 5 CATTLE Forward cattle and those with shape and potential sold extremely well, top price of £1,200 came from the Littler Family at Chester for 22mo Sim x steers just ahead of Messrs Thelwell with Blondes at £1,150.
Shapey, younger cattle sold equally well, Hereford x from Mr S Taylor sold to £870 and a super pen of British Friesians topped at £810 for Messrs Littler. Forward heifers were the trade of the day, Bernard Lowe sold his Sim x to £1,100, a run of good store heifers made £955 for Messrs Littler and Mr S Taylor deserves a mention, his 19mo Lim x heifer made £890.
Butchers Cattle: A shortage of decent clean cattle saw a top call of 182p/kg for a handy Sim x heifer from Mr Phillip Kelsall. Young bulls selling on a flyer once again, bulls from Messrs Wilcock and Mr Wilfred Lomas both to 229p/kg or £1,179 in the lump. Stephen Jones selling a smart Monty bull at 196p/kg (£1136), Brown Swiss to 160p/kg or a shade over £1,000! SHEEP Some runs of excellent quality Lambs met some lively bidding, with all customers competing keenly throughout, to give an overall average which compared very favourably with other local markets this week. Plenty of quality lambs over 200p/kg, peaking at 230p for the best pen of George Stevenson’s load, and several pens grossing at over £110 per head, to £108.67 for Jackie Truemans 51.5 kg.
Quality Averages: New Season Premium: Max p/kg - 230.0 Ave. p/kg - 209.5 Prime: Max p/ kg - 205.0 Ave. p/kg - 197.5 Others: Max p/kg - 179.0 Ave. p/ kg - 168.5. An excellent trade on ewes and rams, always a strong demand for cull ewes at Beeston.
This week’s averages: Premium Ewes £85.29: Middle Ewes £62: Standard Ewes £46.76: Small Ewes £28 (overall ewes ave £43.63) Cull Rams averages : Premium Rams £107.50: Middle Rams £72.50: Standard Rams £52 (Overall Rams ave £92). PRODUCE Seven loads forward and a sunny day brought out customers. A 6.90 tonne load of Wheat Straw in quads saw four bidders pushing the price to £156 per tonne. Another trailer of wheat in quads realised £40 per bale and a trailer load of barley straw in quads made £43 per bale. Small bale barley straw realised £3.40 per bale. Two loads of small baled hay failed to sell at £3.50 per bale. Silage bales £15 per bale.