It was back with the old, but still in with the new, as buyers fully returned to the ringside in Bandon Mart's weekly calf sale.

Buyers may have resumed in-house bidding, but online bidders made their presence felt too.

Numbers were along similar lines to previous years' early calf sales, with 220 on offer on Monday.

Supply and demand ensures calf prices always start strong in January and this year was no different.

With prices of older cattle, some farmers are likely to turn to calves to pick up bigger numbers at handier money and it will be interesting to see if this continues over the spring.

Strong demand

Demand was strongest for continental calves and they certainly didn’t disappoint from a seller's perspective, with bulls selling for up to €550 and heifers making up to €470.

Calves from beef sires dominated the numbers, with the bigger numbers of Friesian bull calves a few weeks away yet.

Of those on offer, prices for most of the Friesian bulls under one month old ranged from €55 to €135. Older Friesians and a share of Montbeliarde bull calves were making from €200 up to €270.

Replicating demand for stores of the same breeds, Angus and Hereford calves were popular sellers. With these, the stronger and older the calf, the better they generally performed.

Those traditional beef breed bull calves sold for between €220 and €465. Prices for heifer calf prices were en par with those for the most part. They sold from €180 to €460.

There was a share of lighter beef-cross calves that sold for below those prices. These tended to be calves closer to three weeks or those with some Jersey breeding in their background.