Mart report: cracker of a clearance dairy sale at Corrin

There was a flyer of a dairy sale at Corrin Mart, Fermoy, Co Cork, on Friday when 80 cows went under the hammer in a complete clearance sale for the Murphy family near Leamlara, Co Cork.

Buyers came from Carlow, Kilkenny and as far away as Monaghan to purchase cows.

Fourteen of the 80 cows on offer made over €2,000 and another 28 made between €1,700 and €2,000.

A top price of €2,540 went to lot 72, a 2017-born cow at €176 EBI (€56 fert/€75 milk). Next best was a cracker of a price also when lot 75, a 2015-born cow sold for €2,480 with an EBI of €161 (€55 fert/€63 milk).

Earlier in the sale, a 2017-born second-calver sold for €2,360 with an EBI of €169 (€73 fert/€52 milk.

Mix of purchasers

Mart manager Sean Leahy was very pleased with how the sale went. When I enquired who was purchasing cows, he said it was a mix of new entrants to milk, expanding farmers and a few who had been hit with TB looking to build numbers back up.

“The herd were very well presented, didn’t have milk recording, but had EBI figures and co-op performance reports showing an average of 7,000 litres at 4.23% fat and 3.63% protein with a somatic cell count at a very low 43, which is exceptionally good. All were AI-bred with average EBI €130," he said.

“We see a big price premium for clearance sales. We have another small one (28 cows) next Friday (13 March), but after that we’ll have our normal weekly commercial sales.”

Heifer calves

There were 18 heifer calves sold and on average they made a very respectable €483, with a range from €370 to €630, with eight calves making over €500 each.

There were 19 weanling heifers sold as part of the clearance and they averaged €935 each, ranging from €1,050 at the top down to €820.

Analysis for this report was generated from the MartBids app. MartBids is a collaboration between the Irish Farmers Journal and livestock marts. The app is available for download on iPhone or Android on the App Store or Google Play. With this app, all of the information that is displayed on the mart board is now available on your smartphone, long before the animal enters the sales ring.