Numbers are steadily creeping upwards in marts, with cattle numbers this week in Martbids marts hitting 17,874 head, with an average clearance rate of 94.8% across all these lots.

While last week’s Martbids figures showed no decrease in cattle price, we had only seen three days of trading from when bluetongue was announced.

This week’s figures show a full week of trading (Tuesday 27 January to Tuesday 4 February), with no major slippages in prices in any class of stock, while some prices actually increased.

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Some sellers had grumbled that prices had slipped, especially in bull weanlings and plainer cattle, but those purchasing cattle refuted this, with the figures in the table showing that the sellers seem to be more right than wrong.

From what we understand so far, trade with Poland for calves is currently being worked on by the Department.

As we begin to approach peak calf sales in the next few weeks, these trade routes will be essential to prevent a backlog of calves hitting the system.

Trade with Northern Ireland for store calves and weanlings for further feeding remains blocked, though happily this has of yet not affected prices.

The likelihood is that free trading of live cattle from north to south and vice versa will be the bargaining chip that the UK department will use and whether the Department will agree to this or not remains to be seen.

Cull cow numbers hitting marts has waned slightly this week, with a slight slippage in price also recorded. Top-end cows are back 3c/kg to €3.63/kg, with average-quality cows now sitting at €3/kg, back 8c/kg on last week. The bottom third of cows, nearly solely made up of dairy cows, averaged €2.45/kg over the last week.

Heifers have leapfrogged bullocks in a major way this week, with a sea of green arrows across the board.

The greatest increases have been seen for better-quality stock and, surprisingly, for heavier heifers.

Usually, we see lighter heifers command a higher price per kilo, but with the significant jump this week, heavy heifers above 600kg lead the way on price in all categories, with top-end heifers of this weight averaging €5.40/kg.

It hasn’t been all doom and gloom for bullocks. While light bullocks below 400kg have taken a tumble, stores between 400kg and 500kg are back by just 2c/kg, with the lower end of bullocks being the main offender at 6c/kg of a slippage.

Heavier bullocks have seen a solid increase of 12c/kg for those 500kg to 600kg lots and 14c/kg for those above 600kg.

Weanling bulls in that critical category of 300kg to 400kg are back 7c/kg this week, though last week saw an identical jump, leaving these calves at the same price as two weeks ago.

Weanling heifers of the same weight are actually trading at 12c/kg more, breaching the €5/kg mark and pipping bulls every so slightly on price per kilo this week, while heavier heifers from 400kg to 450kg have jumped in a similar way to store heifers, with a 28c/kg jump, leaving average-quality weanlings heifers of this weight sitting at €5.07/kg.