Agriland made the trip west to Loughrea Mart on Thursday, August 26, to check in on the trade at the Galway-based mart’s sheep sale.
Marts around the country are witnessing large entries of sheep as breeding sheep come onto the market and bulk up numbers at sales – and Loughrea Mart was no different.
Lambs
Starting with the lamb trade, the majority of the lambs on offer consisted of butcher and factory types, with very few store lambs on offer.
Heavy lambs witnessed the strongest trade and sold to a high of €158/head for two 59kg lambs.
The general run of prices for those butcher-type lambs ranged from €135/head up to €158/head, with the majority selling from €141/head up to €148/head.
Moving onto the factory-type lambs, prices in the main, ranged from just below €120/head up to €130/head, with one exceptional pen of 47kg lambs hitting €137/head.
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.
These 10 48.7kg lambs sold for €141/head 
This pen of 12 ewe lambs weighing 44.5kg sold for €143/head 
This pen of 40.5kg lambs sold for an impressive price of €119/head 
This nice pen of ewe lambs weighing 43.4kg sold for €138/head 
This pen of heavy 52kg lambs sold for €152/head 
These 10 37kg ewe lambs sold for €109/head 
This pen of 45kg ewe lambs gathered a good bit of interest and sold for €140/head 
Another pen of heavy lambs, this time weighing 54kg sold for €146/head 
These two 58kg lambs sold for a top price of €158 a piece 
This pen of ewe lambs drew the greatest interest on the day. Weighing 46kg, they were snapped up at €152/head
As mentioned, store lambs, particularly lighter lots, were in short supply, with more forward-type store lambs seen in greater numbers.
Looking at those forward store lambs, prices of between €112/head up to €117/head were seen, with one pen of 40.5kg lambs selling for an impressive €119/head.
Longer keep stores traded from as low as €60/head for 26kg up to just over €100/head for lots weighing near and up to 40kg, but lacking a considerable amount of flesh.
Ewe lambs commanded strong interest from farmers, particularly lambs weighing in excess of 43-44kg.
Lighter ewe lambs weighing less than 40kg generally sold from €105/head up to €1131/head. 40kg plus ewe lambs sold from €125/head up to €152/head.
Cull ewes
A mixture of both light and heavy ewes were seen at Loughrea Mart on Thursday, with many on offer weighing 80-90kg.
The top price on the day was seen for two 109kg ewes that sold for €189/head. This top price was followed by another good price of €179/head for a ewe weighing 96.5kg.
The majority of those heavy ewes moved at prices of just over €140/head up to €170/head in general.
Hogget ewes
A good entry of hogget ewes was seen on Thursday, although, out of all the stock on offer they were met with the toughest trade.
A couple of stand-out lots sold well and broke the €200/head mark and sold up to a high of €220/head.
Other lots were bidded to €190/head and €200/head but went unsold – with farmers unwilling to budge and happier to go home with them again rather than let them go.
Lighter hogget ewes sold from just over €170/head to near the €185/head mark.
Three pens of mature breeding ewes turned out at Loughrea on Thursday and two lots found new homes.
A cracking pen of both second and third crop ewes sold for a top price of €200/head (pictured above), while a pen of fourth crop ewes made €148/head.