A solid trade across the board is a good way to describe the trade in Macroom Mart for their weekly cattle sale on Saturday last.

A special weanling sale predominantly made up of suckler-bred stock had top billing and most of the premium end of the trade tended to be selling in or around €5/kg, with a few exceptional well-muscled stock exceeding €6/kg.

A top price of €2,550 was paid for a 515kg August 2024-born Charolais-cross bull (€4.95/kg).

From that high back to €1,800 tended to be the run for weanling bulls weighing over 350kg. Plainer R grading stock were about 20c to 40c/kg back from the upper price ranges.

Speaking after the sale, mart manager Jerh O’Sullivan said: “Any day you get close to €5/kg for heavy weanling bulls, you’d have to be happy.

Great reflection

“It’s a great reflection of the trade that’s there at the moment and we had a good mix of exporters and farmers buying, with very strong farmer demand.

“Exporters really focused on the top U grading bulls, but we still had at least 15 farmer buyers and they would have averaged about a half dozen animals each.

“We dipped our toe in the water for a weanling sale in June and we were happy with what showed up.

“There were 150 weanlings between bulls and heifers and there seemed to be no let-up in demand for the top ones.

Trends

“I was very happy with how things went, as traditionally we wouldn’t have as much autumn-calving sucklers in the area. We’ll have a special weanling sale on the last Saturday of every month to the end of the year.”

Trends from the weanling sale were mirrored in the calf ring.

“Demand is definitely exceeding supply for calves. It’s the first time since January where we dropped under 100 calves, but we still had strong demand from shippers with seven present in the calf ring.”