There were 480 calves on offer in New Ross Mart for the Wexford mart’s calf sale on Saturday last.

Despite concern over calf prices heading into the weekend due to storm Kathleen, prices held well for calves.

With weather dampening shipping activity, farmers were the main buyers at the ringside and competed well for calves.

Prices for shipping calves bore the brunt of the bad weather, but the storm had little impact on calves destined for the home market.

The general run of export-type Friesian bull calves were selling for between €5 and €40. It wasn’t all small money for Friesians either, with farmer buyers willing to pay anywhere from €80 to a top of €170 for stronger calves.

For beef-crosses, lighter calves sold for similar prices as shipping Friesians. For the middle rank of Angus and Herefords, bull calves sold for between €100 and €200, with heifers a little behind this.

At the upper end of the traditional beef breed calves, anywhere from €200 to €300 was paid, with a top of €370. Continental-crosses sold for up to €470, with most of those over one month of age. Younger continental calves made similar money to Angus and Herefords.

Hold at home

Speaking after the sale, mart manager Richard Kirwan said: “That was a smaller sale than we’ve had in a long while. With the weather as bad as it was, farmers probably felt it was better to hold calves at home, especially the lighter ones.

“Trade was good for the stronger calf. Farmers are willing to pay for them. I suppose, a good thing about the Saturday sale is it suits part-time farmers.”

Commenting on the introduction of the commercial beef value (CBV) this year, he said: “It’s definitely a help. It just needs time now for buyers to get confidence in it.

“It gives more merit to a poorer looking calf. On the other side, you could have a calf that has got a lot of milk and that looks well in the ring but has a low CBV, so you’d have to see how that animal fares when it hits grass.

Confidence

“I think it will take the bones of two years for confidence to come into it. You’d have to wait and have the animal sold to the factory to see if the CBV helped steer you in the right direction.”

He added: “I’d be a small bit concerned about who’s going to rear the calves in future. There’s a danger it could go the same way as the sheep where there doesn’t seem to be as many people willing to lamb ewes anymore.

“There’s a lot of cost involved and the price and availability of straw has been an issue this spring. That’s something that never happened before.”

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