Cootehill Livestock Mart in Co. Cavan has announced a new addition to its management team to assist in the running and development of the mart venue’s livestock sales.
Noel Gill from Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, has been appointed to the role of business development manager at Cootehill Mart and will assist mart manager Geoffrey Drury in the running and development of the livestock mart.
Gill hails from a farming background and joins the team with 15 years of sales experience working with an animal pharmaceutical company.
Cootehill Mart hosts a weekly general cattle sale every Wednesday. Its weekly sheep sales takes place every Thursday evening and every Friday evening there is a sale of calves and weanlings.
The venue also hosts special sales of dairy stock, pedigree stock, organic cattle and machinery at certain times throughout the year.
The mart is set to host a special sale of pedigree breeding bulls on Friday, May 12.
Growth in cattle numbers sold at mart
The new appointment to the Co. Cavan-based mart comes as the total number of cattle sold at marts across the country has hit almost half a million head in the first three months of 2023, according to figures from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
A total of 499,688 cattle (including calves) were sold in January, February and March of this year, with the highest number being sold in March (228,335 head).
The first quarter of this year had a higher number of cattle sold at marts than the first quarter of last year.
The first three months of 2022 saw 483,803 head of cattle sold at marts, leaving this year’s throughput up by 15,885 head.
The table below compares the number of cattle sold in the first three months of 2022 and 2023 (unsold cattle are not included):
January February March 2022 80,210 154,497 249,096 2023 99,426 171,927 228,335
In 2022, March was the month with the highest number of cattle sold at marts. Large volumes of calves from the dairy herd appearing at marts in the spring was a major contributing factor to this.
The month with the second-highest number of cattle sold at marts last year was October. Large numbers of store cattle and weanlings coming off grass after the summer grazing season accounted for a large volume of this monthly figure.
The number of cattle sold privately (farm-to-farm) in the first three months of this year was 472,707 head.
This figure is down by over 9,600 head from the same time period last year when 482,335 head of cattle were sold from farm to farm.
Last March and April were the two consecutive months with the highest farm-to-farm sales. Farmers trading calves and farmers buying grass cattle likely contributed significantly to these figures.
Farm-to-farm cattle sales were much lower than mart sales in the third and fourth quarters of last year with numbers for quarters three and four peaking in November at 118,482 head of cattle.