Camera at the Mart: sky-high prices at Skibbereen weanling sale

The wave of red-hot weanling sales that is sweeping the country rolled into west Cork on Friday last, when Skibbereen Mart had 300 weanlings go through the ring.

An average price of €2,034 for over 200 bulls speaks for itself.

Most bull U grading bull weanlings between 400kg and 500kg were comfortably making from €5.40/kg to €6.40/kg.

More than that was available too. A price of €3,300 was paid for a 495kg Belgian Blue-cross bull (€6.67/kg).

Per-kilo prices followed similar lines for lighter-weight animals too and it was rare to see a continental-cross bull weighing over 300kg sell for less than €1,600.

A number of calves on offer had already appeared in the ring in Skibbereen as part of the Irish Farmers Journal suckler roadshow in January and they didn’t disappoint.

A Limousin-cross heifer topped the entire sale. Weighing 445kg, she sold for €3,600 (€8.09/kg).

From the same herd, a Belgian Blue-cross bull from a Blonde d’Aquitaine dairy-cross cow weighed 485kg and sold for €3,100 (€6.39/kg).

Their herd mate, a 355kg Limousin-cross bull, sold for €2,400 (6.76/kg) and was champion of the show.

They were joined by three other weanlings in passing the €3,000 mark, while 10% of the weanlings on offer exceeded €2,500.

While the export market has been underpinning the weanling trade for much of the last year, mart manager Keith Mullaney noted that farmers weren’t shy in competing for cattle.

“I’d say it was close to 50:50 between exporters and buyers. Farmers are starting to become more active now and you’d really see them going for the Charolais-cross calves. We had one buy 20 and there was another few farmers went into double figures as well.

'Great sale'

“It was a great sale and you have to give credit to the farmers who have produced the quality we had here.

“You’d never have thought that as an auctioneer, you’d be taking opening bids of €2,000 for calves and then seeing them shoot into over €2,500.

“It wasn’t just bulls either, heifers averaged €1,764 and trade was similar to the bulls. There were a few new west of Ireland buyers in house targeting them.

“We nearly have as many buyers as sellers asking when the next one is going to be on. We’ll run another show and sale on 12 September and again in early October - anything after that will be a bonus.”