It’s another sea of red arrows on the MartBids table this week, with nothing being immune from price cuts bar the bottom third of bullocks and heifers weighing between 350kg-400kg; the total number of heifer weanlings 400kg-450kg is 20 so can be disregarded.

Numbers have been falling but it has done little to stem the slippage in price recorded over the last few weeks.

Stating the obvious, beef price falling week on week is doing nothing to keep confidence in finishers purchasing store cattle.

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There appears no urgent need from factories to source cattle, with many finishers also reporting that they are waiting up to two to three weeks to get cattle killed, with no price guarantee at that stage.

The whole system is back logged and is pushing back on to the store and weanling trade.Coupled with this, we are seeing some poor growth across the western half of the country, with soil temperatures low and rainfall high.

Some improved weather over the weekend onwards should hopefully ease any grass supply issues.

Exporters appear the only chink of light in the whole system, with several leading exporters battling for bull weanlings to fill orders.

While these buyers have boosted some individual sales for top quality bulls, as we can see from the MartBids table, it’s still not enough to stem a slip in price.

Casting our eye back to May 2025, and some questions appear. Heifers 350kg to 400kg in weight are selling for €4/kg this week, while the same heifers this week last year were selling for €4.18/kg; an 18c/kg difference despite a fall in factory price of €1-€1.10/kg.

By those sums, lighter stores are a significantly stronger trade even with recent price cuts than this time last year, when we thought beef would never dip below €7/kg again.

Move up to stronger cattle and the price does come more in line.

Bullocks weighing 500-600kg in May last year were averaging €4.25/kg, while the same bullock this week is trading at €3.78/kg, a difference of 47c/kg.

Weanlings

As mentioned, weanling price has fallen considerably over the last two weeks, but again casting the eye back to last year and you’ll be shocked.

For the same week in May last year, weanling bulls 300kg to 400kg were averaging €4.62/kg. This week, even after a 24c/kg price rise, they are still trading at €4.99/kg, 36c/kg sharper than last year.

It’s even more eye opening when you look at the top third of bulls of this weight, which were trading at €5.20/kg last year and are now 64c/kg ahead of this price, again despite a €1/kg fall in beef.

Fair enough, these weanlings are going for export, but it does show that with all the talk of a depressed price, we still have an extremely strong weanling trade at the minute.

Heifer weanlings 300kg to 400kg are averaging €4.55/kg this week and had been selling for €4.57/kg the same week last year.

With these not going for export, it does show that weanling heifers for the home market are still commanding good money.