This week’s sheep trade has seen €10/kg paid for spring lambs up to 20.5kg carcass weight, according to the president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) , Sean McNamara.
Speaking to Agriland, the ICSA president said that prices as high as €10.00/kg have been paid for spring lambs, with up to €9.70/kg paid for hoggets up to 24kg carcass weight.
He added that the ewe trade is seeing prices ranging from €4.00-4.20/kg paid, and expects no major upsets to the trade in short-term at least.
Looking at the official factory quotes for this week (Tuesday, April 23) and the prices are slightly more conservative.
Irish Country Meats (ICM) is quoting €9.20/kg plus a 20c/kg quality assured (QA) bonus, bringing their offering to €9.40/kg for hoggets up to 23.5kg carcass weight.
The sheep factory is quoting €9.30 plus a 20c/kg QA bonus, bringing its offering to €9.50/kg for spring lambs up to 21.5kg. The ICM price quote for cull ewes is €4.00/kg.
Kildare Chilling is quoting is quoting €9.40/kg plus a 10c/kg QA bonus, bringing their offering to €9.50/kg for hoggets up to 23.5kg carcass weight.
The processor is quoting €9.50 plus a 10c/kg QA bonus, bringing its offering to €9.60/kg for spring lambs up to 21.5kg and the processors’ price quote for cull ewes is €4.00/kg plus a 10c/kg QA bonus for ewes, with a carcass weight ranging from 35-43kg.
Price quotes from other outlets are ranging from €9.40/kg for hoggets, €9.50/kg for spring lambs and €4.00-€4.10/kg for ewes.
Looking at the supplies of spring lambs and hoggets and the cumulative spring lamb kill to date, this year is actually over 5,600 head ahead of last year.
Weekly spring lamb kills remain low with just over 1,300 head processed in the week ending Sunday, April 14 (week 15) but supplies are expected to gradually increase over the coming weeks.
The cumulative hogget hill is just over 42,400 head below last years’ kill with 685,000 head of hoggets processed in the first 15 weeks this year. 40,300 hoggets were slaughtered in week 15 of this year.
The total sheep kill this year stands at just under 771,000 head, back 42,500 head on the same time of last year.