Marts around the country reported some very small sales this week, as a lot of farmers concentrated on baling hay in the good weather.

The commencement of the harvest in the south has also left marts a little easier this week.

Speaking to mart managers around the country, heavy slaughter-fit cattle are in very short supply. Numbers of fit cattle coming off grass are low and farmers seem in no panic to move them.

As one farmer said to me this week, “the sun is on their back, the cattle are happy and the farmer is happy, why anyone would be panicking about selling”.

While grass supplies were under pressure on some farms in the south last week, this has abated a little, with more rain forecast for this weekend.

Ration prices

Another issue is ration price. In other years, some summer grazers would have opted to start feeding cattle in July to be out before the autumn flush, but this year with ration prices over €400/t, some are opting to send stock to grass and maybe even offload in the mart as a forward store towards the back end.

In the bullock category, it was the lighter bullocks that were the highlight of the trade last week. Bullocks under 500kg saw an improvement of between 4c and 7c/kg on last week’s trading.

Heavier bullocks didn’t fare out as well, with bullocks over 600kg coming back between 6c and 11c.

In the heifer category, there hasn’t been a lot of change on the previous week. Heavy heifers over 600kg dropped back to €2.90/kg this week, with lighter continental heifers in the 400kg to 500kg bracket trading at €2.74/kg.

Dry cows

Dairy-cross heifers in the same weight category are trading between €2.20/kg and €2.30/kg.

Dry cows saw an improvement in the trade last week, with the average of the top end of cows trading between €2.70/kg and €3.00/kg.

Lighter, plainer, suckler-bred cows are trading for €2.40/kg to €2.70/kg, depending on weight and flesh cover.

Poorer-quality continental cows and some fleshed Friesian cows are coming in around the €2/kg mark, while parlour cows and Friesian cows lacking flesh are trading back at €1.30/kg to €1.50/kg.

Weanlings continue to be a very solid trade, with both bulls and heifers recording good demand this week.

Weanling bulls in the 300kg to 400kg category ranged in price from €3.12/kg for the top third to the bottom third coming in at €2.42/kg.

This category would include Friesian bulls and export agents have been active this week around rings buying these plainer-type bull weanlings. Heifer weanlings are a similar trade to last week, with the top end of heifers in the 300kg to 400kg bracket coming in at €3.08/kg.

Comparison

Looking back to the same week last year, prices for both bulls and heifers are currently trading at 20c and 25c/kg ahead of last year’s prices. That’s coming in at about €80/head above last year’s prices.

Given where input prices are at, it’s questionable whether the rise in price is enough to compensate for the increased costs.