Weanling prices in a ‘different league’

Weanling prices have gone into a completely different league this year, the manager of Castlerea Mart has said.

Brendan Egan outlined that the number of exports increased across the board and the price increased as well.

“Weanling prices are up an average of €2/kg in the current year, it’s a substantial rise. The dry cows have risen an awful lot as well,” he said at the Teagasc Beef Conference in C0 Galway.

“It has been a good year for the suckler farmer, financially it has been good.”

Egan noted that there had been some health issues with weanlings in the second half of the year.

“With the spell of weather, it was 16° to 17°C there, humid weather and a lot of rainfall. There was health issues.

“It was raised and that came to a head there a few weeks ago,” he said, in what was a nod to the recent exporter boycott of mart sales.

“For the money that’s involved for the stock, it’s important we all play our part. Marts are proactive and we’re announcing anyone that comes in with vaccinated weanlings, we announced them,” he said, advising that farmers to have a good dosing and vaccination programme in place.

“Exporters want good feedback from the feedlots abroad to have repeat customers, because we have a premium product. The Irish weanling is as good a weanling as anyone in the world,” he said.

Egan said that high quality weanlings are going to Spain, Italy and Greece. He said numbers to Morocco have fallen a bit and that this was down to price.

Overall, he said the demand is there broadly across the whole sector.