Scottish lamb has maintained its high price, with some abattoirs offering over £5.80/kg this week for R grading carcases up to 22kg.

Prime sales in marts cooled a touch, with prices from £2.60/kg to £2.80kg liveweight. However, many lambs are still coming to over £130/head. The official Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) price for R3L lambs across the UK is £5.99/kg, which is up 41p/kg for the week ending 13 November.

The averages per head for United Auctions’ sale of store lambs were Beltex £101, down £4; Suffolk £99, up £3; Texel £92, down £2; Mule £97, n/c; Cheviot £77, up £6; and Blackface £68, down £1.

Thainstone sold 1,728 store lambs to an average of £92/head. The cull ewe price in Scotland averaged £79/head for the week ending 13 November unchanged on the week.

Beef price

Beef farmers are still getting between £4.10 and £4.20/kg for their R grading continental steers again this week.

The AHDB beef price for an R4L steer is down 2p to £4.21/kg. Same-grade heifers were £4.22/kg, up 1p. The young bull price is £4.04/kg deadweight, unchanged. Cows grading O-4L were £2.80/kg, down 4p.

The price gap between Scotland and England has narrowed to almost nothing. Quality U grading cattle are sometimes getting more in English abattoirs over Scottish, while poorer grading cattle are getting a premium north of the border.

Thainstone sold 809 store cattle, with steers averaging £2.33/kg, down 4p; and heifers £2.31/kg, up 2p.

United Auctions sold 1,235 store cattle, with steers averaging £2.11/kg, down 13p; and heifers £2.13/kg, down 4p. Huntly Mart sort steers at £2.11/kg and heifers at £2.06/kg.

Newton Stewart held a store sale of 199 cattle. The steers averaged £2.11/kg and the heifers £2.01/kg. Orkney Mart sold steers this week which averaged £2.20/kg and £1,140 per head, which is a rise of £65. The heifers averaged £2.07/kg and £1,034 per head, down £27.

Across Scotland, steers weighing 370kg to 464kg averaged £2.01/kg, 465kg to 555kg were £2.41/kg and over 555kg were £2.14/kg. Heifers weighing 330kg to 399kg averaged £2.17/kg, 400kg to 480kg were £2.32/kg and over 480kg was £2.09/kg.

Cull cows in Scotland average £1.20/kg liveweight for beef-bred cows, which is unchanged on the week, and 96p/kg for dairy-bred cows, which up 11p. Steers in the prime ring averaged £2.22/kg and heifers the same price.

At the dairy-cross calf sale at Ayr Mart, the top price for a British Blue bull was £460/head, Limousin £440/head, Aberdeen Angus £425/head. Heifer top prices were £435/head for British Blue, £430/head for Limousin, £395/head for Simmental, £320/head for Aberdeen Angus and £285/head for Hereford.