Camera at the Mart: quality light weanlings easily surpassing €3/kg in Ennis

Ennis Mart hosted the first of its autumn special autumn-born weanling sales on Tuesday, attracting nearly 300 weanlings.

A good number of lighter store heifers and bullocks helped to boost this to over 500 cattle going through the weighing scales, of which 97% found new homes.

Speaking following the sale, Ennis Mart manager Martin McNamara said: “The quality of weanlings on offer was very high, particularly for the weanling bulls.

“The trade certainly matched the quality on offer, with bull and heifer prices up €80 a head on the same sale 12 months previous.”

While the weanlings may have attracted the bidders, it was two yearling heifers which stole the limelight, selling for over €4/kg.

Both suitable for breeding, the roan colouring that’s currently in trend certainly played its part.

Hitting a price of €2,030 was a roan Limousin heifer born April 2020 that weighed 475kg (€4.27/kg). One of her roan stablemates was next in line when sold for €2,040. It was another April 2020-born Limousin heifer, this time weighing 485kg (€4.21/kg).

That said, the weanlings far from disappointed, with over €3/kg hit regularly for the upper end of stock. Top price here was a five-month-old Charolais bull calf that weighed 285kg and sold for €3.58/kg (€1,020).

The biggest offering of weanlings was males between 300kg and 400kg. For the top third of lots sold in this weight, average recorded was an impressive €3.03/kg - up 18c/kg on the previous week with double the amount sold.

With a number of lots surpassing the €1,000 per head mark, the top price per kilo in this section was €3.47, paid for a seven-month-old Limousin.

Prices were equally as strong for heavier stock, with one 440kg Blue bull born October last year selling for €1,350 (€3.07/kg).

Moving even further up on the weight past 450kg, bulls hit close to €1,500 a head for top-quality lots. Leading the way here was a call of €1,480 for a 500kg Limousin born October 2020.

Heifers didn’t have the numbers forward, but, again, the most popular weight was that between 300kg and 400kg.

Heifers here averaged €2.86/kg, back 17c on bull weanlings of the same weight. Prices here peaked at €3.32/kg for a nine-month-old Limousin that weighed 385kg.