The mart trade continues to move at a very solid pace, with demand exceeding supply again this week in many of the country’s marts.

Exporters continue to light up the weanling trade, with some exceptional prices being paid for top-quality weanlings.

Huge numbers of weanlings are leaving the country every week on roll-on roll-off lorries and a number of ships are due to dock in Irish ports in November for further consignments of weanlings and store cattle.

The threat of Bluetongue still exists and the current mild weather isn’t helping things in terms of stemming its spread across the UK.

One shudders to think what an outbreak here would do to the weanling trade.

With thousands of weanlings being purchased every week for export, the implications of an outbreak are scary.

It’s a high-risk business with millions of euro at stake in terms of filling export contracts.

Marts too are taking on a huge amount of risk with the current high prices of cattle.

Many of the larger marts across the country are now dealing with turnovers of over €1m/week.

Mart managers have a difficult job at the best of times, but with the current high prices, they deserve all the credit they get in terms of managing customer accounts and knowing who to allow to buy and who to stop buying.

Twenty heavy cattle at the moment won’t be long coming into €50,000. When prices are high, the stakes are high.

An interesting point to note were the two sales held this week for pedigree Charolais and Limousin cattle in Carrick-on-Shannon and Roscrea.

The trade was described as sluggish in both sales, with Limousin bulls in Roscrea being particularly difficult.

Both breeds are flying in the commercial rings, so you wonder why the pedigree sales aren’t following suit.

A lower-than-normal clearance rate of 60% was seen in the Charolais sale in Carrick.

A drop of over 40,000 suckler cows isn’t helping the pedigree trade and huge changes will occur in the coming years as pedigree breeders adjust to a declining market for their bulls, especially in the continental breeds.

Taking a look at this week’s Martbids analysis table, we see that heifers were the highlight of this week’s trade, with all quality categories and weight categories seeing a rise in price this week.

Top quality 400kg to 500kg heifers came in at €3.25/kg, a lift of 13c/kg on the previous week. Average-quality heifers in the same weight bracket came in at €2.81/kg, up 8c/kg on the previous week.

Plainer-quality heifers were also up, with Aberdeen Angus heifers in the south coming in at €2.60/kg this week.

Heavy bullocks were a little easier this week, but they were coming off a big high last week.

Average-quality bullocks in the 600kg+ category came in at €2.77/kg this week, back 13c/kg on the previous week.

In the weanling bull rings, heavy weanling bulls were up across the board, with top-quality animals over 450kg up 7c/kg to €3.44/kg.

Weanling heifers weren’t as hot, with average 300kg to 400kg weanling heifers coming in at €3.07/kg this week.