Saturday saw a special heifer sale take place at Mohill Mart. There were about 200 head on offer, with only a handful of cows on account of the special heifer sale.

The majority of animals were heavy store heifers, with some lighter stores on offer also.

Mart manager Stephen Hannon said that it was a refreshingly strong trade for store beef and breeding heifers.

He added that the mart has recently made a considerable investment in the cattle intake chutes to improve safety on top of the strong investment made in the mart in recent years, which underpins the commitment of the co-op to continue to provide a much-needed mart service to farmers in the area.

In terms of the sale, one thing that was evident was the quality of stock on offer. The majority of heifers for sale were top-quality R+ and U grades suitable for feeding.

Farmers and feeders were the main sources of demand, with the best prices paid for U grade heavy heifers.

Stephen said that it was feedlot buyers that kept a firm floor under prices at the sale.

At the top of the market, the best heifers close to 700kg sold from €1,500 to a top price of €1,600/head.

Good-quality heavy heifers from 600kg to 700kg were a strong trade also and sold mainly from €1,200 to €1,450.

Age was a factor when it came to average-quality heavy types, with some falling short in terms of price compared with those that would be slaughtered in-spec.

Having said that, prices for aged heifers were only about €50/head behind in-spec stock.

There were very few heifers on offer of average quality and no poor-quality heifers on offer at all.

There was a share of lighter heifers on offer from 450kg to 500kg. These sold mainly from €1,000 to €1,200, with the majority making over €1,100/head.

Some plainer-quality light heifers under 450kg sold from €850 to €950/head, but there were very few of these in the sale.

Demand for the lighter heifers wasn’t as strong as the feeder demand for better-quality heavy types, but having said that, there were plenty of buyers and clearance rates even for the lighter types was very high.

Commission rates are 2% to the seller to a maximum charge of €24 and €10 to the buyer, with a €2 entry fee.