Charollais Garriston dispersal tops 2,200gns
A standalone Garriston flock dispersal sale held on behalf of Leyburn’s Kenton Foster was responsible for the leading prices at the annual autumn show and sale of pedigree breeding females staged under the auspices of the British Charollais Sheep Society at Skipton Auction Mart.
Mr Foster, of Garriston Farm, consigned a total of 71 ewe lambs, shearlings and older ewes – the last of his females – and two ram lambs from his renowned flock.
Mr Foster was supreme champion at Skipton’s corresponding 2011 Charollais highlight and the same sire, the home-bred Garriston Kosher, was also responsible for his 2012 top price shearling ewe, a second prize winner at this year’s Royal Highland Show and Wensleydale Show champion.
With such glowing credentials, the shearling, scanned with twins for December, met with spirited bidding at the ringside, before falling for 2,200gns when finding a new home in Northern Ireland with County Londonderry’s Adam Porter, a young man who is new to the Charollais sheep-breeding world. After seeing the sheep on facebook, he travelled over especially for the sale, making three Garriston purchases in total.
Leading the aged ewe prices, also second top price in show at 2,100gns, was another Garriston multiple prizewinner, a 2-shear which had won a first prize at the Great Yorkshire, finished fifth at the Royal Highland, was reserve champion at Wensleydale to Mr Foster’s 2,200gns top price and interbreed champion at Ripley. By Trevadlock Instigator and scanned for triplets, she joined Welsh buyers H and M Evans, of Ty Croes.
The Garriston dispersal also produced the top price ewe lamb, a classy December-born triplet by Arjane Knuckleduster, a sire prominent among the Skipton entries. It joined D Christie’s Lornbrook flock in Comber, Northern Ireland, for 1,700gns.
Mr Foster also achieved several other four-figure prices. Sold at 1,600gns to A Gray and Son, of Lanark, was a March-born ewe lamb by a Wraycastle ram and one of 15 embryo daughters of a productive 2006-born ewe offered as part of the dispersal, along with dam herself.
Two further shearling ewe embryo daughters of the same dam were both bought over the phone at 1,200gns and 1,100gns respectively by the Northern Ireland-based McConnell Brothers for their Hollylodge flock in Co Antrim.
A further entry to achieve 1,200gns was a December, 2009, ewe and full sister to Garriston Kosher, 2010 Great Yorkshire reserve male champion, which found pastures new with C H Rees, of Llantwit Major in the Vale of Glamorgan.
New starters, the Campbell partnership from Stokesley, purchased a total of six Garriston sheep, the top a further embryo daughter at 900gns, while A Torrens, another new breeder from Co Tyrone in Northern Ireland, bought four sheep, among them the first prize and interbreed ewe lamb at this year’s Wensleydale Show.
Garriston averages were: 28 aged ewes 567gns, 19 shearling ewes 818gns, 24 ewe lambs 581gns and two ram lambs 470gns.
Prospective Garriston purchasers travelled from Northern and Southern Ireland and from all parts of the UK, while there were also telephone bids from the Isle of Man. Mr Foster commented: “There were at least 41 different buyers, which I regard as very special.”