There has been a positive turn to the lamb market over the past week with prices of prime and store lambs both rising. The average price paid for prime lambs rose by 8p/kg to move to £1.86/kg. This comes on the back of an extra 5,569 prime lambs moving through auctions in the past week to give total throughput of 16,757 head.

Prices have also taken a positive turn in abattoirs across the UK with an average increase of 2p/kg to bring the price to £4.23/kg. While the increase may be slight it does halt the slipping of prices that was being experienced and will hopefully stabilise the market and it comes as numbers of lambs slaughtered increased by 1,423 head in the past week.

Ewe numbers also surged with over 10,000 presented at auction, an increase of nearly 2,900 head on the previous week. However, this did see prices drop by £2/head, to £56/head.

Elsewhere store prices have been strong over the past week with positive trends at both Lairg and Stirling store sales. At Stirling an average of £57.50/head was paid for store lambs. At Lairg the average price for wether lambs was £51.11/head while for ewe lambs the average price was £76.54/head.