On Thursday evening (March 10), Agriland made the trip to Ballinasloe Mart to cast an eye over the mart’s sheep sale which saw cull ewe prices reach €220.
The evening sale saw over 50 pens of hoggets on offer along with two rows each of cull ewes and in-lamb and ewes with lambs at foot.
The hogget trade at Ballinasloe Mart witnessed an increase in prices on the week before but it was the cull ewe trade which caught the ewe with a number of ewes selling for over €200 and making up to €220.
Click on a thumbnail in the gallery (below) to open up a full-size image; once opened you can scroll sideways to see the next picture. Refer to each caption to see details of each lot, including the hammer price.
Starting with the cull ewe trade, as said already, a half dozen ewes, weighing 90-112kg sold from €206/head up to €220/head for two ewes weighing 103kg and 112kg respectively.
Staying with the heavy ewes, those weighing 87-95kg generally made from €170/head up to just over €190/head with the exception of a pen of 90kg ewes that sold for €210/head.
Ewes just over 80kg and up to 86kg traded from €140/head to near €160/head, with ewes weighing in the 70-80kg bracket moving at prices ranging from €120/head up to close to the €140/head mark.
Looking at the hogget trade, a good selection of heavy fleshed lambs were presented for sale and were met with a strong demand mainly on the floor but also from online bidders.
Many of the heavy hoggets on offer consisted of hogget ewes, with farmers maybe looking at picking off any hogget ewes they don’t feel quality wise will be up to scratch come the breeding sale season.
On the evening, 50kg plus hoggets sold to highs of €162-168/head, with a good few lots making mostly to a high of €162/head.
However, the general run of prices for those 50kg plus hoggets ranged from €154/head up to €162/head, while 47-49kg hoggets sold from €146/head up to €154/head.
Factory agents weren’t prepared to leave anything behind and picked up 44-45kg hoggets with a good cover of flesh at prices ranging from €140-150/head.
Forward stores generally moved at prices of €125-140/head, with light stores making from €75-120/head.
A sticky trade for in-lamb ewes was seen and follows a trend that has been seen at marts right across the country in general for in-lamb ewes. Prices ranged from €128/head up to €132/head.
On the other hand, a good lively trade was seen for ewes with lambs at foot. Prices ranged from €128/unit for ewes with a single lamb at foot up to €292/unit for a third crop ewe with two lambs at foot.