Last Summer when speaking to a sheep farming friend in the UK he remarked that: "Between Schmallenberg and the weather, the lamb crop in Wales and in the English Scottish Border country has been decimated. Hoggets are going to be scarce and dear".

In mid-March, 56 kg hoggets made up to €157 a head in Kilkenny. The organisers of the World Shearing Finals in Gorey fear that hoggets, earmarked for the shearing, will be sold instead.

The strange thing about this Spring is that the high hogget prices have not made its way back into the trade for in-lamb ewes and ewes with lambs at foot. This is in contrast to what's happening on the cattle front. Beef prices are much lower than last year, yet I find that the sort of store heifer that I try to buy (350 to 400 kg) is just as dear as 12 months ago.

Instead of buying all cattle for the grass, I have bought extra sheep. Older ewes with single lambs cost from €90 to €95. As my intention is to sell both for slaughter in the near future, I believe this strategic move on my behalf is a wise one. I paid €122 a head for full mouthed white ewes with nice Texel cross twin lambs at foot. In-lamb ewes, described as two, three and four-year-olds scanned to lamb at 1.75 lambs per ewe, cost me €118 each.

People are often nervous about buying in-lamb ewes in case you are buying another person's trouble, but so far these ewes are lambing just fine. Lambs are strong and milk is satifactory. Only time will tell whether they will leave profit or at least do better than the heifers.

I did notice that on the following week in Tullow mart, a farmer selling 200 in-lamb two to four-year-old ewes got about €130 each for them. But that is still an inadequate increase in comparison to what the same ewes were worth during the breeding season.

What will breeding ewes be worth next July and August? It is anybody's guess, although the sheep tag suppliers reckon that the demand for tags for breeding hoggets is back 100,000 on last year.