The mart trade continues to hit new highs this week, with dry cows being the highlight.

For the first time in 2025, the cow kill dropped to under 5,000 head last week and with hot sunny weather forecast for much of the UK and Europe over the next two weeks, demand for manufacturing beef sales has lifted with barbecues being pulled out for one last voyage before the school holidays come to an end.

The top third of cull cows hit €4.19/kg this week in marts, which is way beyond what cows are worth in the factory.

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Some prices being paid for cull cows this week would need to be getting well north of €8/kg to get out. Even very plain light dairy cull cows that would require a few months feeding are selling for north of €1,500.

Pressure

The increased demand is putting huge pressure on factories to fill manufacturing contracts.

With a low cow kill, this has forced agents into marts to shore up dwindling supplies and snap up any fit or near-fit cows for a next day-kill.

There has been some talk this week about factories implementing a policy whereby they only slaughter cattle from a mart if they have been in a buyer’s herd number for 30 days. There has been no sign of this being adopted within their own circles over the last number of days, with factory agents every bit as active this week as they have been over the last number of weeks.

More buyers

Mart managers are reporting more cattle buyers looking at store lambs as an option given where cattle prices are at and this has injected some energy into the store lambs trade.

There’s an abundance of grass on farms in many parts of the country and farmers are scratching their heads as to how to get it eaten.

Exporters continue to light up the weanling trade, with a number of special sales taking place over the last week in Balla and Carrigallen.

Top call in Carrigallen went to an August 2024-born Belgian Blue bull weanling weighing 525kg that sold for €3,820 (€7.28/kg). Sixteen weanlings made over €3,000/head.

Commenting on the sale, Carrigallen Mart manager Helen Kells said: “There have been a lot of autumn-born weanlings sold already, so I don’t think you are going to see huge numbers of weanlings appear on the market any time soon.”

Taking a look at this week’s Martbids analysis table, we see that it was another good week for the mart trade, with bullocks and heifers all up on price.

Bullocks in the 500kg to 600kg weight category saw the biggest lift this week, with average bullocks up 14c/kg to €4.42/kg.

Lighter bullocks in the 400kg to 500kg weight category also met a good trade, with top-quality bullocks coming in at €5.19/kg this week.

For heifers, the best bidding was seen for lighter heifers.

In the weanling rings, exporters continue to drive on the trade, with heavier weanlings being a particularly good trade this week.

Top-quality bulls in the 400kg to 450kg weight category came in at €6.38/kg this week, up 26c/kg on the previous week. Heifer weanlings didn’t fare as well this week, with all weight and price categories down on price.