Devoted goat breeders Mark Bond and Graeme Dodd from Catterick ensured the Supreme Champion prize at the Great Yorkshire Show stayed on home ground.

The pair insist they are hobby breeders but admit they’re so dedicated to their goats they lavish all their time on them while both still holding down full time jobs.

Mark, 45, is a pigman, looking after 3,500 pigs and Graeme, 41, is a horticulturalist. Their dedication to the Daleston herd of pedigree dairy goats paid off when they carried off the top prizes with six of their best British White Saanen goats.

Because they are not licensed to sell for human consumption only Mark and Graeme get to taste the milk, but they insist it is delicious and is in big demand by dog breeders.

Mark, who is originally from Middlesbrough, moving to Carperby, near Leyburn, to look after dairy cattle before going into pigs, and started small scale with dairy goats 11 years ago and has built up the herd with Graeme at Catterick.

They’re both overwhelmed by their win. Mark said: “This is the first time we have won the Great Yorkshire Show, we have been showing the goats since we started and bred a champion in 2019 but all the shows stopped. We were really keen to get back in once all the agricultural shows started again. We are hobby breeders, but it is a big thing for us, a real passion.

The Northern Farmer:

“We want to breed animals to the highest standards, we do sell surplus males for commercial herds. Goat breeding is not what it used to be, in the 80s during the time of the Good Life there was a lot of interest but not so much now. It is very time consuming, people don’t have the commitment to milk twice a day. We have a small milking machine but we do hand milk, it is very therapeutic.”

Their Supreme Champion, Dalestone Britney, is 17 months in milk and delivering just short of five litres a day. The pair also took four goatlings to the show, Gaynor won champion goatling and Glenda won reserve goatling.

Mark added: “They are not like sheep they are more like dairy cows, you have to look after them and give them good quality feed, you can’t have a Rolls Royce and run it on paraffin.

"I nearly didn’t take Britney because we had come back from the Royal Cheshire and she really wasn’t happy, she was under the weather and I was not sure I should take her, but we did. I thought she might come somewhere near the top but she carried off the top prize, it was brilliant, we were chuffed to bits. They are lovely, a nice goat is beauty personified."

Now they are looking forward to taking their prize winning goats to five more shows before the end of the season, including Egton and Stokesley.