United Kingdom-South Devon Stud cattle Sale.

UNITED KINGDOM-SOUTH DEVON STUD CATTLE SALE AT EXETER.

With a top price of 6,200gns, and six others at 5,000gns and over, the South Devon bull average price saw a rise of £508 at South Devon Herd Book Society spring show and sale at Exeter.

The auction marked the continuing rise in commercial confidence in this popular native beef breed. A total of 31 bulls sold, averaging £3,695.

The strong trade was also there for the heifer section, with breed averages rising over £500 overall in the past six months, to £1,812 for two-year-old heifers and to £2,407 for yearlings.

In the show ring, watched by a large well-informed crowd, the judge, Lionel Pascoe, from the Carzise Herd at Fraddam, near Hayle, selected his male champion from a strong line-up of six bull classes. M E & T E Broome’s Welland Valley Tobias 6, from Thorpe Langton in Leicestershire, scooped the award, with the reserve going to Messrs J Collings’ Wenfork Trusty 5 from Treburley, near Launceston.

Best bull judged on performance and inspection was B G & J Z A Dart’s polled bull, Z AI Woodhayes Illya 12, which also took the best polled male award. The bull’s growth EBVs are in the top five per cent of the breed, and he was recently selected for Eblex’s Young Bull Promotion Scheme.

Roger Rundle, from Kestle, near Newquay, took the female champion award for Kestle Tulip 77 by a Lumbylaw sire, as well as awards for male and female pairs. Reserve female champion was M R & R J Rowe’s Tregondale Jill 132 from Menheniot, near Liskeard.

Buyers came from throughout England.

Leading the trade at 6,200gns guineas was D J Thomas & Son’s polled bull, Z Treguddick Poll Progression 5, from Treguddick, near Launceston, which sold to E L Foale, of Newton Abbot; followed by reserve male champion at 5,800gns to T M Kent, from Baschurch, near Shrewsbury.

Two other good, strong polled bulls, R R B & S J Harvey’s Z Sexton Poll Polaris 2, and R J & C Edwards’ Z Colcharton Dynamic 2, each sold at 5,500gns to J Hopkins, Lympsham, Somerset and to J B Fentem & Sons, Alsop-en-le-Dale, Derbyshire.

R J & C J Edwards had further success in the sale ring, collecting top price of 3,000gns in the female section, for Z Colcharton Darling of 2007, which sold to R Edwards, Leominster, Herefordshire, followed at 2,600gns by M R & R J Rowe’s Tregondale Suffragette 17, which sold to T Earl, Lerryn, near Truro to accompany four other heifers acquired by this new breeder.

Averages: 31 pedigree bulls, averaged £3,695; 18 pedigree females, averaged £2,031.