There was a slightly smaller entry of just over 350 sheep in Roscommon Livestock Mart this week for its weekly sheep sale.

With scanning in full swing throughout the country, it was no surprise that the majority of sheep in the Roscommon sales yard were cull ewes.

Hogget numbers were well down on the previous few sales, which was mostly down to the drop in hogget prices and many farmers holding off.

Attracting the most interest in the sales yard was the in-lamb section. The section topped at €354/head for a pen of six in-lamb mule-type hoggets scanned carrying 12 lambs.

Two more bunches of six crossbred hoggets scanned carrying 12 lambs sold for €302/head. The final bunch of seven in-lamb hoggets scanned carrying 13 lambs sold for €296/head.

The mature in-lamb ewes sold from €200 for an aged ewe carrying a single to €308 for a second-crop Suffolk ewe carrying twins.

Cull ewes

Cull ewes were highly sought after by both ringside and online bidders.

The cull ewe section was topped by a pair of Texel ewes that weighed a strong 102.5kg and sold for €248 each.

Suffolk-cross cull ewes topped at €234/head for a pen of four Borris-type ewes that weighed 99.5kg. Cull ewes sold from €1.60/kg for lighter ewes with a poorer flesh covering to €2.54/kg for heavy well-fleshed ewes.

With the slightly smaller entry of hoggets, prices remained on par with the current factory prices.

The demand from bidders for all weight categories remained strong throughout the sale. The hogget section was topped by a pen of 15 Suffolk hoggets that weighed 54.8kg and sold for €225 each (€4.11/kg).

A large number of the hoggets present weighed over 50kg and sold from €3.62/kg to €4.14/kg. The hoggets weighing from 40kg to 50kg sold from €3.88/kg to €4.13/kg.

There was only one pen of lambs weighing under 40kg and they sold for €120/head (€3.21/kg).

Mart manager Tony Conroy commented: "It was great to see such strong energy around the in-lamb hoggets and cull ewes for this time of year."