Carnaross Mart, Co. Meath, hosted its weekly sale of calves on the May Bank Holiday Monday, May 1, with over 800 calves and runners on offer at the sale.
Speaking to Agriland after the sale, Carnaross Mart’s, Rodney Windrum gave an overview of the calf trade at the Co. Meath mart venue.
He explained that a lot of the Friesian bull calves have already gone through the system and the sales are primarily beef-sired calves now, but noted there remains a steady trade for the Friesian bulls.
He said that export buyers are paying up to €150 for the better-type export Friesian bull calves while the stronger Friesian bull calves weaned off milk made up to €250.
Sample calf prices from the Monday sale:
“Exporters remain very active with five different export buyers here at the sale on Monday. We also had a number of calves going to Northern Ireland from the sale this week,” Windrum said.
“The buyers in Northern Ireland were primarily looking for good, strong reared heifer calves.”
The top-priced calf at the Monday sale was a March-born Charolais heifer calf bred off a Limousin cow. This calf sold for €680. There was also a Simmental heifer calf that sold for €670.
The auctioneer continued: “Farmer buyers remain very active for calves and have been out in big numbers since the start of April. Calf numbers will start to dry up at the end of May.”
Windrum outlined that the clearance was very high at the sale with approximately a 98% clearance rate in the calf sale.
Carnaross Mart is set to host a dairy sale on Wednesday, May 10, and the mart will also host a clearance sale of pedigree and commercial Shorthorn sucklers on behalf of Hamwood Stud on Saturday, May 13.