On Monday, February 7, Agriland made the trip to Athenry Mart for its weekly sale of sheep – which saw lamb/hogget prices reach €162/head.

The trade, from speaking to onlookers, was back on the previous week, with both buyers and sellers playing hardball when it came to price.

Prices generally did not exceed €160/head as they had a week previously for those heavy lambs at Athenry. Factory agents seemed unwilling to entertain sellers’ wishes of obtaining prices above this level – with the rare exception of a few pens.

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.

Looking at the trade in more detail, the overall prices for those 50kg plus lambs generally ranged from €155/head up to €160/head – with butcher buyers also coming into play for these heavy lambs.

Prices did reach a high of €162/head for a pen of 64.5kg lambs, while €161/head was secured for a fine pen of 55kg lambs.

47-49kg lambs sold from €147/head up to €155/head, with select lots selling to a high of €159/head.

Lambs weighing back to 45kg sold back to €145/head.

There were very few stores on offer at Athenry Mart; however, the few pens that were on offer sold well, to as high as €3.25/kg.

Prices for stores ranged from €95/head for long-keep types, to just over the 30kg mark up to €130/head for 40kg lambs.

A strong entry of cull ewes was also seen at the Galway-based mart on Monday.

Many farmers are now moving on ewes that scanned empty and, as a result, they made up a strong proportion of the ewes on offer.

Looking at the heavy types, prices generally ranged from just over €150/head up to €175/head – with a top price of €200 being seen for a 102kg ewe.

Medium-sized ewes generally traded from €120/head up to €145/head, with Scottish Blackface ewes selling back to €50/head (or €1.00/kg).

A few pens of ewes with lambs at foot were on offer but their trade was sluggish.

Ewes with single lambs sold up to €160/unit, while second and third-crop ewes with twin and triplet lambs at foot sold up to €220/unit. Lastly, in-lamb ewes sold from €180/head up to €200/head.