In picture: no new year rise in sheep mart prices

Steady throughput of lambs over the Christmas trade and static factory prices have deflated any hopes of a new-year price increase in marts reopening this week.

Factory agent activity was limited by plants getting higher than normal numbers of hoggets directly from farms, with prices closely following paid weight limits.

Good-quality hoggets weighing 50kg upwards sold in general from €100/head to €105/head, with sellers having to be patient and hold out for the higher prices.

The top price for factory/butcher sheep on the day was offered for top-quality 54kg hoggets but these were unsold at €107/head.

This price was only bettered by a pen of quality Suffolk ewe lambs weighing 51.3kg on average which attracted strong farmer competition and sold for €115.

Lambs weighing 45kg to 47kg sold from €94 to €97, with lambs weighing 47kg to 50kg selling from €97 to €100. Store lambs were a brighter trade relative to finished lambs.

Lambs weighing 40kg to 42kg sold from €86 to €90, with fleshed lambs at the higher end of the range. Lighter lambs weighing 35kg to 38kg sold from €65 to €75 for plain quality and crossbred lambs with better quality lots to €80 each.

In-lamb ewes

There were also a few pens of in-lamb ewes and ewes with lambs at foot. An entry of top-quality ewes lambing from 1 February sold from €170 for ewes carrying an average 1.5 lambs with ewes carrying on average two lambs selling to €180.

A pen of lighter second and third of ewes running with a ram from 23 October but not scanned sold for €120.

The entry of ewes with one lamb at foot was mixed quality and sold well for the type of sheep on offer. Aged broken mouth ewes with young lambs at foot sold from €100 to €130, with younger ewes or older ewes with stronger lambs selling to a top of €177.

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