The sheep market remains buoyant, with abattoirs paying between £4.15/kg and £4.50/kg for R grade lambs.

Clean cattle prices remain firm, with most abattoirs paying above £3.70/kg for R grading continental carcases.

The official Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) steer price was £3.88/kg for an R4L for the week ending 17 October, which is a slight fall of 1p/kg.

Heifers grading R4L were quoted at £3.86/kg, which is also down 1p/kg.

Same-grade bulls were £3.71/kg, which is down 3p/kg. Cows grading O-4L didn’t change and remain at £2.65/kg.

Beef-bred cows at marts are making £1.20/kg liveweight.

The number of store cattle sold fell back by 3,000 to 7,076 animals, with an average price of £899/head, which is back £10/head.

Mediumweight prime lambs in the live ring remained unchanged at £1.97/kg.

Heavier lambs dipped 2p/kg to £1.86/kg.

The number of new-season lambs sold through the ring remained similar to last week with 22,956 sold.

The number of live ewes sold in the live ring dipped below 10,000 to 9,371 for the first time in over a month.

The average price was £58.35/head, which is down £1.01/head.

The official AHDB lamb price for last week was £4.42/kg for an R grade, which is a rise of 6p/kg.

Store lamb sales continued to drop in number, with a 15% fall to 12,637.

The average liveweight price was £58.92, which is back just under £1/head.

September kill steady

Sheepmeat production in the UK for September was the same in 2020 as it was last year at 26,800t according to AHDB figures.

The average lamb carcase weights fell slightly on the year, down 0.2kg to 19.3kg.

Estimates for cattle throughput in the UK for September show a 3.2% fall on the year to 168,700 head. Carcase weights for steers are 4.4kg lighter this year than last at 356.5kg. Young bulls are similar weights to September last year at 342.2kg. Heifer weights are up 6.4kg to 323.2kg.

Reports suggest this general reduction in carcase weights is due to farmers finishing cattle earlier in order to take advantage of the relatively high prices for the time of year.

September’s total UK beef production totalled 77,500t, down 1.3% compared with 2019. However, production for September increased by 2,900t on the previous month. Based on the first nine months of 2020, production totalled 694,100t, up 3% on the year.