Prime sheep slaughter fell by 2% year-on-year at Scottish abattoirs last week, with carcase weights also down, but only marginally.

Prices for lambs have split, with dead weight prices falling to around £4.50/kg for R-grade carcases, which is a fall of 10p this week. The live trade is down 2p to £2.09/kg liveweight. Stirling Caledonian mart had the highest price for new season heavy lambs at £2.22/kg and light lambs were most at Dingwall, where they made £1.93/kg.

Across GB, the number of lambs at auction were up 8% on the previous week. However, we are still seeing 9% fewer lambs on the market compared with last year. Interestingly, cast ewes are up 12% year-on-year. Figures reported by AHDB show that sheep slaughter numbers in GB were up 3% compared with the same month last year and 7% up on May 2017.

Meanwhile, the average carcase weight fell to 19.1kg from 19.8kg in May, but this is still 700g heavier than June last year. New Zealand (NZ) sheep numbers look to be steadying, according to its Ministry for Primary Industries. It claims that the falling ewe numbers will slow and lambing percentages will grow, along with carcase weights. The ministry suggests that it will kill 19.4m lambs, which is down 6.5% on last year. Exports have been estimated to have fallen by 7% to 345,000 tonnes, with a slightly smaller number suggested for the coming four years.

AHDB reports that from January to May this year, UK imports of NZ fresh and frozen sheep meat fell by 21% compared with 2016.