On Tuesday evening, February 1, Agriland made the trip to Tuam Mart to check in on its weekly sheep sale – which saw lamb/hogget prices reach €163/head.
The trade was a slow burner to start off, with buyers and sellers sussing each other out and weighing up which way the trade would go.
However, it soon picked up and prices for both finished and store lambs overall performed strongly, representing an increase on what was seen at marts last week.
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.
Prices for lambs/hoggets over 50kg ranged from €145/head up to €158/head, with a couple of exceptional pens consisting mainly of ewe lambs selling upwards of €160 and to a high of €163/head.
Prices for 50kg plus lambs that dipped below €150/head were mainly seen for big, framed lambs lacking some flesh.
Moving down in the weights, 46-49kg lambs traded from €138/head up to €146/head, while 41-45kg lambs moved at prices ranging from €127/head up to €137/head in general. A handful of pens broke this range, selling between €140/head and €150/head, with the latter price seen for a pen of ewe lambs.
Lastly, 38-40kg lambs sold from €112/head up to €130/head. The lightest stores on offer, weighing 30kg, sold for €86/head.
Straight after the sale of lambs was a few pens of in-lamb ewes and ewes with lambs at foot.
In-lamb ewes traded from €145/head up to €200/head, while ewes with two young lambs at foot sold from €230/unit up to €248/unit.
A solid cull-ewe trade was seen, with the trade for these types seeing little change over the last number of weeks.
