Granard Mart in Co. Longford hosted its weekly sale of suckler cows, as well as weanling heifers and bulls on Monday evening, (February 26).
The sale featured a total of 130 weanling bulls, as well as over 80 weanling heifers, and approximately 20 suckler cows.
There were two mart rings in action on the night.
Speaking to Agriland after the sale, mart manager Jodie Reilly said: “The trade on the evening was fairly strong, with the farmer customers keen for the good calves and the export buyers looking for the more in-between quality calves. The exporters were also buying Angus heifers too.”
Commenting on the prices being paid, he said: “There’s lots of calves clearing the €3.50/kg mark, but the lesser, dairy-bred calves weighing 250-260kg would be getting it hard to get into maybe €650 or that, there’s not as many customers for those ones.”
Sample prices from the weanling bull ring:
On the top end of the price scale, he said: “The €4/kg is there to be got for the real nice farmers’ type, hairy Charolais calves and an odd lighter top-quality suckler-bred calf there at 280kg or that is managing to get into €5/kg.
He explained that the farmers who buy cattle in for the summer months have now commenced sourcing their 2024 cattle saying: “The seven-month men are getting started now and that’s it. It doesn’t matter what the weather is doing, they have to start buying now.”
Sample prices for the weanling heifer sale:
He said: “There was a good share of quality continental cattle there in both the heifers and the bulls and there was also a selection of nice cows included with a reduction sale featuring a number of continental cows there too.
“The in-calf cows were averaging €2,000 for the better cows and a few lesser cows on offer were averaging around the €1,600-1,700 price mark. The cows in the reduction sale were five-to-six-year-old cows and are due to calve shortly.”
Trade is good at the minute and sellers appear happy enough with a clearance rate of nearly 100%.
Granard Mart hosts a weanling and suckler cow sale on Mondays with a bullock, heifer and dry cow sale every Wednesday.
The mart venue also hosts a horse sale on the last Thursday of every month.