Webbery Sale 30th July 2012
The sale of the spring calving portion of the Webbery herd of Guernseys and Jerseys took place on the farm in Devon yesterday.
The Guernsey cows met a better trade than the Jerseys with 27 of the 62 forward selling for more than £1050 (1000 gns).
The Jerseys were younger with 22 of the 90 sold being in their first lactation, whilst there were no Guernsey heifers in the sale but only 22 made more than 1200 gns with a top price of 1650 gns for Lot 142.
Andrew Lewis was the main buyer taking 22 Guernsey cows to join his Hartland View herd established in 2010,where 150 Guernsey cows share facilities with 350 high yielding Holsteins (avg over 10,000 kgs). The Guernseys are grazed and housed separately and all of the milk from both herds is sold to Cricketers Cheese.
Lot 19 W Lowton Claire 6 made 1520 gns , Lot 30 W Geraldine made 1480, Lot 40 W Trell Snowdrop 2 made 1450, Lot 50 W Aster made 1520, Lot 57 W Luckley Ivy 3 made 1750 and was the highest priced animal in the sale, Lot 58 W Bick Dot made 1650, Lot 87 W Buttertub 11 made 1550 ,Lot 94 W Quinta 6 made 1520, Lot 123 W Coach Curly 3 made 1650 and these were all bought by Andrew Lewis.
The other major buyer was another Mr Lewis from Wrexham North Wales who purchased 14 and competed with Andrew Lewis for most of the better cows, he paid 1280 for lot 32 W Bobby, 1600 for Lot 44 W Bettina 7 an H83 2nd calver sired by K Posh Paddy sold doing 32 kgs a day,1520 for Lot 54 W Marguerite 6 and 1280 for Lot 113 W Kenvin Bouquet 3 .
Duncan Vincent was looking for cows that were full of milk as the Devonshire Farmhouse Ice Cream business based on the farm is currently short of milk , he bought 4 the best of whom was Lot 68 W Creampot an Aaron daughter giving 38 kgs a day in her 4th lactation and gave over 9000 kgs in her third lactation.
The other major buyers were the Fallows family from Staffordshire who bought 7 cows for their Eavesford herd including Lot 80 W Enid 4 for 1400 and Lot 104 W Sally 2 for 1620 they also bought a very nice calf Lot 58 A W Bick Dot 3 by Ezekiel for 360.
The calves at foot generally sold well for between 180 and 360 gns but the maiden heifers which were well grown and some were big enough to serve proved more difficult to sell making between 300 and 400 gns, not helped by the auctioneers decision to match them by size in threes, fours and fives and to mix cross breds with pure breds.