The live trade remains in a solid position, despite many flies in the ointment. The impact that the ban on northern exports was never hugely felt by a lot of marts due to an increase in farmer activity, despite it being early in the year for many farmers to be out buying ‘grass cattle’.

They have shored up the trade for stores and weanlings that we would normally see crossing the border.

As a result, we have seen little change in recent weeks on prices for both types of stock, though bullocks have taken a slight fall this week, but nothing hugely drastic.

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Rumours of the export ban being lifted in the next fortnight would hopefully rectify any slippages that we would see, but whether this happens or not remains to be seen.

Another issue that seems to be hampering the bullock trade is the supposed backlog of cattle for slaughter.

Finishers are waiting for two to three weeks in some cases for agents to get cattle slaughtered for them.

Had these finishers been around the ring in the last few weeks, it would surely have led to more positive prices.

As we can see from the Martbids data table, even though there is a sea of red arrows in the bullock chart, lighter bullocks rose dramatically in last week’s analysis, meaning they are still ahead by roughly 15c/kg on two weeks ago.

Heavier bullocks weighing 500kg to 600kg have fallen for a consecutive week and are now 24c/kg behind where they were two weeks ago, with lots above 600kg having fallen by a similar amount, with slippage in factory prices and this supposed backlog in cattle slaughter the likely contributor.

Heifer have been much more positive, with some decent lifts in price this week in the midweight bands of 12c to 13c/kg after a similar fall in price last week, meaning price is on par with what it was two weeks prior.

Lighter heifers falling by 6c/kg is of little effect having risen by 21c/kg last week, while heavy heifers above 600kg have yet to see the same effect on price that bullocks have witnessed, with a 7c/kg rise on last week’s price.

Weanling trade

The weanling trade is still positive this week, with a dry week weather-wise putting more confidence in buyers, with farmer buyers yet again dominating.

Bull weanlings in the midweight category of 300kg to 400kg are still nicely above the €5/kg mark and despite a slight fall in price this week of 9c/kg, so too are bulls weighing 200kg to 300kg.

Weanling heifers from 300kg to 400kg saw no change in average price, while the big slippage in price of heavy heifers can be disregarded, with less than 30 cattle recorded in this weight band this week.

A large proportion of weanling heifers weighing 200kg to 300kg that are coming through are of dairy-beef origin, with a slip of 6c/kg in price recorded this week.

Regarding cow trade, average price this week was recorded at €2.98/kg, back 2c/kg, while the top and bottom third of cows sold for €3.51/kg and €2.46/kg respectively.

Dry cow numbers have contracted well this week, with now roughly 60% of the throughput that was seen two to three weeks ago.