On Monday evening, Elphin Mart held its weekly general cattle sale.
Like all marts around the country, a drop in numbers is seen over the summer months, with Elphin dropping its Wednesday sale until August, with bullocks and heifers now also sold on Mondays.
This Monday saw a good entry of cull cows, with some exceptional-quality cows on offer and this was reflected with over half the cows selling for above €2,800/head.
Mart manager Ciaran Lynch described the trade as exceptional.
“We had a serious entry of quality cows. Some of these cows were as good as you’ll get. The buyers around the right were keen to buy, with a number of feedlots seeking quality store cows,” he said.
“There was some confusion around the new TB rules earlier, but that has now straightened itself out.
"We had cows only CFU herds could buy and they crossed the €4/kg mark. I would say a lot more cows are landing to the mart inside the 30-day test to give farmers more options,” Ciaran said.
Better demand
While there was better demand for well-fleshed factory-fit cows on the previous week, feedlot buyers and farmers fought it out to secure store cows weighing between 650kg and 800kg, with the top of these lots crossing €4/kg on multiple occasions.
For store cows weighing over 900kg, while they didn’t cross the €4/kg mark, many sold from €3.50/kg upwards, with most of these heavy cows able to cross the €3,000/head barrier.
The best sellers were cows weighing between 650kg and 800kg, with the top third of these lots able to cross the €4/kg mark, with up to €4.55/kg paid for a Belgian Blue-cross cow.
More traditional-bred cows and poorer-quality continentals sold from €3/kg to €3.60/kg, with strong farmer demand for these types to summer graze.
There was a smaller entry in the weanling ring this week as a result of the fine weather, but it didn’t hold back the buyers for what was on offer, with bull weanlings selling from €4.50/kg up to €4.90/kg.
The heifer weanlings were a little slacker than the bulls this week, as they sold from €4.30/kg to €4.75/kg.
“We would be at the quietest time of the year for weanlings - the strongest harvest-born weanlings were sold here three weeks ago and farmers will hold off selling until our next special sale in July.
"I’m very optimistic on the weanling trade. We have had strong shipper activity all year and they will hopefully continue. We have a coupe of big sales to kick off come August and September,” said Ciaran.
There was a small number of cows in-calf to an Angus bull on offer, with these varying in quality. They sold from €1,500 to €2,400.
SHARING OPTIONS