New Ross Mart had a full clearance at its weekly sheep sale on Monday last, with prices for ewes a noticeable feature.

A number of young heavy ewes made over €200, with a few lots making over €240. These were heavy ewes usually over 100kg.

On a per-kilo basis, most young ewes in good condition made from €2/kg to €2.60/kg, with older ewes and those with less flesh making between €1.30/kg and €1.80/kg.

Demand was strong for lambs and buyers competed well for what was on offer.

With a handful of exceptions, anywhere from €3.50/kg to €3.80/kg was the going rate for most of the lambs from 42kg to 46kg.

There appeared to be a bit more bite too for lambs pushing 50kg or over, but these were in very short supply.

A few lots of lighter store lambs were also on offer, but the same appetite didn’t appear to be there for them.

Speaking after the sale, auctioneer Jim Bushe said: “The stronger the ewe, the bigger the price. They’ve been very dear for the last two or three marts.

“I think there’s a lot of breeding ewes, those that are three and four year olds and they’re being sold in the cast ewe ring.

“When there’s big strong ewes at €230 and €240, it’s hard to justify putting a ram back on them, especially when they’re not able to compete for land and after a bad spring.”

He also reported a slight easing in numbers after a busy few months.

“Numbers aren’t mad big for the time of year, but we’ve seen a lot of lambs moved hands in the last two months.

“There was a lot of activity ahead of the Eid al-Adha festival and a lot of ram lambs were weighed in and bought in the marts.

“When farmers saw the prices, they kept feeding them on strong to get them out.”

Given the big throughput of lambs early in the year, he felt that prices should hold through July at least.

“They’ve been a pretty good trade all year and big numbers have gone through already, so price should hold.

“I can see sheep up to the end of July being a very good trade. We’ll probably see the effects of the bad spring later on in the year.

“There were more lambs lost with the difficult weather and there’s probably fewer ewes around too.

“We had a good mix of buyers between factories, butchers and wholesalers and everyone wanted heavy lambs on Monday. We had a few over 50kg that were making up to €230, but those are very scarce. Exporters picked up a lot of those strongest sheep already.”