The few dry days puts everyone in a good mood and in the west, northwest and midlands, we are finally seeing cattle hit grass in respectable numbers.

It’s been a long winter, with a lot of fodder and feed gone into animals, but comparative to beef price, concentrates have been good value and silage quality is good.

Most farmers have cattle in fantastic order hitting grass; almost too good.

We would have traditionally seen store cattle being purchased along the western seaboard being bought up by finishers from the midlands and east, with ‘hungry’ store cattle doing most of their work off grass once they hit the good fattening ground of these areas.

There is a slight risk that, at this late stage of spring, store cattle and weanlings that have been receiving concentrates up until lately will actually go backwards in weight when they hit grass, particularly some older, low-energy grass growing all winter.

Buyers have been acutely aware of this, with many opting for a lighter animal with less fleshing that is going to hit the ground running.

Mart numbers have actually bounced back this week, with a jump of over 15% compared with last week.

Looking at prices across our MartBids database, it’s a game of leapfrog between heifers and bullocks. While heifers were largely up in price, the saying ‘the lord giveth and the lord taketh’ comes to mind; whatever buyers gave the week prior in a price increase they have slashed off over the last week.

Light heifers weighing 350kg to 400kg are trading at €4.15/kg, while steers of the same weight are trading at €4.17/kg, while stores weighing 400kg to 500kg are seeing heifers average €4.06/kg, while bullocks are averaging €4.13/kg.

If we were to take the better-type heifers suitable for breeding out of this, then the price would be even lower for females, meaning there does appear to be value in lighter stores for grass buyers.

It’s much the same for more forward and finished types, with heifers weighing 500kg to 600kg selling for an average of €3.90/kg, while bullocks of the same weight are 12c/kg above this and while the over-600kg weight bracket was comparable last week, this week bullocks have jumped 11c/kg, while heifers remain static.

The trend is mirrored in the weanling trade, with bull weanlings generally up in price, while heifers have retracted, for better-quality and heavier-type heifers, with lighter and plainer types slightly up.

Bull weanlings are trading strongly at marts, with exporters said to be very active ringside still.

The sweet spot weight of 300kg to 400kg bulls are averaging €5.22/kg, with the top third of bulls that exporters are seeking hitting the €6/kg mark.

Heifer weanlings of the same weight have slipped by 5c/kg and are trading at an average of €4.78/kg.

The cull cow trade has stabilised as well for top-end cows and after a fall of 19c/kg last week for the top third of cows, we now see these types up 17c/kg this week, trading to an average of €3.55/kg, with average-quality cows up 3c/kg trading at €2.93/kg.