February 16, 2021 6:40 am
Challenging travel conditions and harsh weather resulted in a number of marts seeing reduced numbers brought forward for sale last week.
In terms of trade, prices reported were more or less similar to the previous week although some marts reported setbacks – as heavy cattle continued to take a hit due to factory cuts.
Some marts were reporting a slight ease back also in the levels of northern customers bidding online.
The bulk of heavy cattle were selling from €2.15/kg back to €2.05/kg.
Looking at the cull cows first – marts located in the heartlands of suckler country were still seeing some prices in excess of €2.00/kg. However, the general run of prices for heavy continental cows were from €1.90/kg back to €1.65/kg.
February 12, 2021 6:00 am
With the prices taking a setback in the factories, some marts have noted a slight setback in the trade of stores and heavier cattle this week.
Speaking with Eilish Curley, mart manager of Ballinasloe Mart, she stated: “Farmers were still very keen to get their hands on store cattle this week.”
AgriLand caught up with Eilish to get her opinion about the trade of 200 animals at the mart’s weekly sale of bullocks, heifers and cull cows, held on Wednesday (February 10). She said:
“The store cattle would have been slightly back on the previous week, but still they would have been a good trade.
January 3, 2021 6:10 am
Fat lambs made up to €133/head at Ballinsloe Mart’s final sheep sale of 2020, in what was an unusually big sale for the Galway-based mart.
The mart’s manager, Eilish Curley, noted that the majority of lambs on offer consisted of butcher, factory and forward-store lambs – with very few light stores on offer.
She said: “We had a big, last sheep sale of the year on Thursday [December 17]. We had over 800 sheep on offer, the majority of which were lambs, while we also had a couple of pens of cull ewes and two pens of in-lamb ewes.
“The butcher and factory lambs finished the year out on a strong note. Heavy, well-fleshed lambs made up to a top price of €133/head.