There were 720 calves on offer in Skibbereen Mart for the west Cork venue’s weekly calf sale on Friday last.

Beef-crosses made up the bulk of what was on offer and of those, traditional beef breed calves dominated the numbers.

Prices for these ranged from a high of €325 for an Angus-cross bull calf down to a low of €2 for lighter Angus- and Hereford-cross calves.

Those were the extremes, but most of those crosses weighing between 60kg and 75kg sold for between €100 and €240 if they were from Friesian cows.

Continental calves had a high of €315, but could be bought for below €30 if they had Jersey genetics.

Most prices for them were similar to the traditional beef breeds, with €120 to €270 available for calves over 50kg.

Scarce Friesians

Friesians were relatively scarce. Those over 50kg sold from €30 to €90.

A few heavier Friesian-cross bull calves made it into this price range too, but lighter ones struggled to get over €20, as there seemed to be very little appetite for them from buyers.

Speaking after the sale, mart manager Keith Mullaney was pleased with how things have gone so far in 2024.

“We had a good enough spring. There were an odd few days alright when Friesians were plentiful and weather was poor so their prices took a hit.

“Other than that, trade has been very solid. Anyone that’s giving calves plenty of milk ahead of sale is getting well paid for their efforts.”

After a slow start, he reported calf numbers along the lines of previous years.

“We’re getting our fair share of calves and I’m happy enough with how it’s going.

“We peaked at about 750 a few weeks ago, but have been steady enough all spring once we got going.

“In terms of numbers, they were behind where they usually were and they’ve caught up, but you’d see the number of Friesian calves seems to be drying up.”

Maybe the Easter holidays played a part, but farmers were very active at the Good Friday sale.

More buyers

“We had 96 buyers in total for this week’s sale. There seems to be more buyers out there lately too, with farmers becoming very active online buying this week.

“They’re looking for a strong calf over 60kg and looking mainly for bulls. That helped give a bit of a lift in trade for the good-quality calves.

“Lighter calves are a bit more of a challenge and a few of those were making around €50 to €100.

“There is a challenge selling calves with JEX on the card, even at handy money people don’t seem to want to take a chance bidding on them.”