Camera at the Mart: butchers drive the trade in Loughrea Mart

Loughrea Mart in Co Galway recorded a lively trade at its weekly sheep sale held on Thursday 13 July.

The trade for top-quality lambs was underpinned by keen demand from a number of butcher buyers, with prices for top-quality lambs weighing from 48kg to 50kg ranging in the main from €158 to €165 and hitting a top price of €169/head.

Local man Kevin Holland from Craughwell, Co Galway, was appointed as assistant manager in January.

He reports that the high levels of competition for well-fleshed lambs in recent weeks has been helped by relatively tight numbers.

Last Thursday’s sale had an entry of 420 sheep on offer, when normal levels of throughput for the time of year would be upwards of 600 head.

The lower throughput is a knock-on consequence of farmers pushing out lambs at lighter weights for the recent Islamic religious festival of Eid al-Adha.

This is also evident in lambs being marketed at a lighter weight, with farmers moving lambs quicker to take advantage of the trade.

Keen demand

There was also keen demand from factory agents for lambs, but this was outside of the butcher trade.

Lambs weighing from 48kg to 50kg but not attracting butcher-buyer attention sold from €150 to €156 on average, with flesh cover having a big say on prices paid.

It was a similar story for lambs weighing from 45kg to 47kg, with prices ranging from €140 to €148 in the main, with the best-quality lots topping €150/head.

There was very few sheep traded below this price range, with a couple of pens of lambs weighing back to 42kg to 43kg selling from the mid-€130s upwards.

The cull ewe trade is variable, with well-fleshed ewes still capable of selling from €1.70/kg to €1.90/kg and hitting as high as €2.00/kg on occasion.

Medium-weight ewes are trading from €1.30/kg to €1.55/kg, with light ewes very short of flesh back to €1/kg.

A sheep show and sale takes place on Thursday 10 August at 10.30am.

Classes on the day include a best pen of butcher lambs, best pen of ewe lambs, best pen of breeding hoggets and best pen of breeding ewes.

Loughrea Mart made local headlines last weekend following torrential rainfall on Friday and Saturday, leading to flash flooding and resulting in the cattle sale being cancelled.

Floods quickly subsided and Kevin says there is a strong entry of cattle booked in for this Saturday’s general cattle sale.