Store lamb sales have kicked off around the country and prices are buoyant, thanks to extremely strong demand from farmers looking to make use of excellent grass supplies.

In Ballymena, store lambs sold to £68 for a pen of heavy-fleshed Suffolk, Texel and Mule types. Lighter, lowland-type lambs, likely to kill by September, sold from £64 to £66.50.

In Armoy, good-quality crossbred lambs sold from £62 to £65 for Suffolk and Texel types, with a few pens of heavy, short-keep animals making £67.

Earlier this week, Saintfield recorded prices in the mid-£60s for animals typically weighing 35kg-38kg. In the west, crossbred lambs were selling from £65 to £66 at Enniskillen Mart, with numbers increasing week-on-week.

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