On Wednesday (May 18), Enniscorthy Mart held its weekly sale of sheep, which saw an excellent trade for spring lambs and cull ewes according to the mart's assistant manager, Kevin Murphy.

After the conclusion of the sale, Agriland caught up with Kevin to get his thoughts on the trade.

He said: "It was a smaller sale this week, but an excellent trade was seen for spring lambs and cull ewes, with prices up anywhere from €8-12/head on last week's trade.

"Finished sheep are extremely scarce, which has led to a bigger number of factory agents gather ringside and buying online this week.

"All of the regular buyers are well used to online buying by now and a good proportion of them opted to continue to do so rather than attend in person," he continued.

"Most of the heavy lambs were bought by local butchers as the factory weight limit prevented factory agents from buying the heavy lambs," he said.

Kevin added: "The factory-type spring lamb saw the biggest lift of the day with most of the suitable lambs up in excess of €10/head.

"Factory lambs ranged from €110 to €127 over the kilo, with a standout price of €171/head for seven lambs at 44kg seen."

Speaking about the cull ewe trade, Kevin noted: "There was a smaller entry of cull ewes on the day which saw prices increase by €8/head on average.

"There wasn’t as good a quality on offer, with a good proportion of the culls made up of store ewes."

Touching on the hogget and ewes with lamb at foot trade, Kevin explained: "Hoggets were very scarce on the day but [there are] still a few agents looking for hoggets even though they have dropped back maybe €5/head on last week.

"Lastly, there were some nice lots of ewes with lambs at foot, which made up to €286 for ewes with twins and €192 for ewes with singles," he concluded.