Numbers are starting to ease in marts around the country, with smaller sales taking place in a lot of marts over the last seven to 10 days. The trade has also eased a little.

Practically all cattle have been housed at this stage, so all buyers are moving straight to a shed with cattle.

The tricky grazing conditions during the summer months has had an impact on cattle supplies, with some cattle being presented for sale in the last month back 50kg to 100kg on where they would normally be.

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Prime cattle are in short supply in factories and this has seen more factories out in the last week sourcing factory-fit cattle in marts.

Analysis

This is evident in this week’s Martbids analysis table, which sees heavy cattle recording increases across the board.

The weanling trade continues to track back a little and is down from the highs of recent weeks.

Speaking to a few mart managers this week, they say that the best of the weanlings have been sold at this stage and the trade is generally reflecting that drop in quality.

Taking a look at this week’s table, we see that it was a good week for heavy cattle, with prices up across the board for cattle above 600kg.

The top third of bullocks over 600kg came in at €2.75/kg this week, with average heavy bullocks coming in at €2.48/kg – an increase of 4c/kg on the previous week’s trading.

Heavy heifers also met a good trade, with bigger increases seen in the heifer rings this week. Top-quality heifers over 600kg came in at €2.85/kg this week, while average heifers over 600kg came in at €2.52/kg, a 14c/kg increase on last week.

Heavy weanlings

Heavy weanlings saw a drop in price this week, with top-end weanling bulls over 450kg back by 7c/kg to €2.97/kg this week.

Top-quality weanling bulls in the 300kg to 400kg bracket came in at €3.41/kg this week.

The trade was relatively solid for heifer weanlings, with heavy heifers the only negative in the trade this week. Average heifers in the 300kg to 400kg weight bracket were unchanged at €2.74/kg.

Live exports

It’s a big few weeks for live exports, with the Sarah M being loaded this week by a southern-based exporter. This load of approximately 2,000 Friesian cattle is destined for Misurata Port in Libya.

There is hope that another load will be assembled for Libya before the end of the year.

The Emerald Isle beef producer group is also hopeful of assembling a load of cattle for Algeria within the next few months.

Live exports are currently running 18% ahead of 2022 levels, with the largest increase coming in the finished cattle category. There have been 40,066 finished cattle exported so far in 2023, compared with 30,813 exported for the same period in 2022. Weanlings have also seen a strong year for exports, up 5,565 head or 26% on the same period in 2022.

The Ganado Express is also en route to Ireland for a load of weanlings being exported by a northern-based exporter.

Close to 3,000 cattle are expected to be loaded on this shipment to Israel before the end of November.