The long trip to Shrewsbury to sell some of their dairy cattle paid dividends for a west Wales farming family who returned home with the champion’s rosette.

The Evans family from Dryslwyn, Carmarthen, saw Deri Enid 455, a Seagull-Bay Jo Dancer heifer giving 31.3kg of milk, sell for £2,600 at auctioneers Halls’ Dairy Show and Sale.

The family sold four heifers, including the much admired Deri Pet 82, sired by Seagull-Bay MJ Applejax and giving 34kg of milk, which sold for £2,250. The quartet, which averaged £2,187, sold to the show judge, Rachel Owen, from Overton.

A new vendor at the market, G W Watkin, from Borth, near Aberystwyth, sold an impressive group of 12 fresh heifers which topped at £2,150 for Henllys Kimball May 2, having calved two weeks ago. The group averaged £1,763.

However, the headline of the day was made by a heifer with a great pedigree from a Staffordshire herd which sold for £3,200.

Whitgreave Haniko Zindra, from Stubbs Partners, Whitgreave, Stafford, which was backed by 10 generations in the top two grades, tracing back to the great Ocean-view Mandel Zandra EX95 and giving 36kg of milk, sold to R A Jones and Son, Pied House, Garthmyl, near Welshpool.

The 48 heifers on offer averaged £1,776 while the nine cows averaged £1,863.

Halls auctioneer Jonny Dymond, Shrewsbury Auction Centre manager, said: “It’s evident that Shrewsbury Auction Centre’s reputation for selling top quality dairy cattle is spreading far and wide.

“We are now attracting cattle from a huge geographical region including Carmarthenshire, Derbyshire, Ceredigion and Leicestershire, with others from Warwickshire, Gloucester and Lincolnshire in recent weeks. Long may this continue.

“We are always delighted to welcome new vendors and buyers to the market.”