IN EXCESS of £500,000 was brought in for 147 head at last week’s dispersal of Nigel and Jane Matthews’ Pyebrook Limousin herd, held on farm at Stanton Lacy, Ludlow, Shropshire.

averages:
41 cows with calves at foot, £3128.23; 23 in-calf cows, £3850.76; 18 heifers with calves at foot, £2980.83; 20 served heifers, £2559.37; 22 maiden heifers, £1975.90; seven heifer calves suckling recipient dams, £10,650; three bull calves suckling recipient dams, £4480; three stock bulls, £9625.00; eight young bulls, £2546.25; two frozen embryos, £2730; three cross-bred cows in calf, £1260.


Frequent heavy investors in the breed, Smiths of Bloxham, secured six of the top 15 lots, including the top two sellers at 29,000gns and 20,000gns, for their Ironstone herd at Banbury, Oxfordshire.
Leading the trade, at 29,000gns, was the French-bred cow, Unicite, a rising seven-year-old that was a second prize winner at Paris Show and breed champion at Shropshire and West Midlands Show. An Omer daughter, out of the Favori-sired Institutri, she has been flushed three times, with nine embryo calves included in the sale.