A WHITFIELD father and son team scooped the title of Overall Champion in an annual prize show and sale of spring-born suckled calves.

At what’s known as the Bellingham Sale, even though it’s held at Hexham Mart, Eric and Mark Armstrong, of Harlow Bower, received the Michael Walton Trophy for a Limousin cross heifer.

Eric described the prize-winning heifer, which came from a first cross British Blue suckler cow sourced from retired local dairy farmers Dick and Janice Batey, as “quite the picture”.

The sire used was a newly-sourced and long sought-after pedigree Limousin stock bull from Messrs Holliday, Langwathby, whose bulls had previously helped Messrs Armstrong achieve success.

And it was this bull Eric said he owed much of his success to.

“Choosing a bull should be given as much thought as choosing a wife,” he laughed.

“You have to find one that’s nice to look at, because you don’t know how long you’re going to be stuck with it.”

When it went under the hammer, the champion heifer met with brisk bidding from all corners of the ring as well as from telephone bidders, but eventually went home to south Wales with the judge, Rhys Millichap, who parted with £1,500 for her.

The Limousin genetics of the Armstrongs’ herd crossed with that of the British Blue were in great demand throughout the sale, with their steers peaking at £1,000.

However, it was another of their heifers that stole the show when it was knocked down for £1,520 to Messrs Bell of Lockerbie.

The father and son, who took 19 cattle to the Bellingham Sale, saw three of their heifers sell for £1,200, £1,220 and £1,120, achieving a pleasing average of £1,017 for cattle reared to eight and nine months of age.

Standing as a worthy Reserve Champion in the show was a British Blue cross heifer from Dan Kemp of Keepwick, who took the title for one of his beasts for the second year in a row.

The reserve champion received a lot of interest from the three home nations, and was sold to Messrs Bell, of Lockerbie, for £1,500.

As well as selling his Reserve Champion heifer for the second top price of the day, Dan Kemp also achieved high prices for his 14 steers, which topped at £1,010. His remaining eight heifers hit £1,090.

Overall, Dan reached an average of £888 for his run of calves.

The judge praised the quality of the cattle presented, and said this year’s sale was a testament to local farmers and their ability to produce cattle in such fine fettle, despite the turbulent year of bad weather conditions.