Cootehill Livestock Mart in Co. Cavan hosted a sale of organic heifers and bullocks on Wednesday (August 17) after its weekly general cattle sale.
Cootehill Mart manager Geoffrey Drury said the mart will be hosting an organic cattle sale once a month going forward.
“There’s a lot of interest in it from farmers in the locality and that’s why we’re running it,” he said.
The organic sale featured a generous offering of what could only be described as top-quality beef cattle.
Both organic and conventional beef farmers and finishers bought cattle at the sale, with customers coming from as far away as Munster.
Drury explained: “A lot of the organic cattle are being bought by organic beef finishers in the midlands, but some are being bought by local conventional beef farmers.”
“There was serious quality cattle in the sale; they were all super-bred Charolais cattle, as good as you could ask for,” Drury continued.
“Some farmers say they’re better cattle to thrive than the store animal that’s getting too well pushed on meal. The organic cattle are done mainly on grass and when they get feeding, they do a great thrive.”
Drury believes the sector will grow, saying “there’s great subsidies and anyone that’s finishing organic cattle is getting a good price bonus”.
“There seems to be a lot of farmers in this area showing a big interest in switching to organics as the payments are very tempting,” he said.
Despite this, the prices/kg in both the conventional and organic sales were similar.
“There was nothing in the difference of price in both sales, although the outlook in the future is that more farmers will be interested in buying these cattle,” said Drury.
General sale
Commenting on the general cattle sale, which took place before the organic cattle sale, Drury said: “It looks like the weanling is going to be a great trade trade this year; I think the younger animal is the one farmers will be looking to buy.
“A lot of the smaller beef finishers have quit finishing cattle and are buying weanlings and selling stores now instead.”
Drury explained that beef finishers were buying most of the forward cattle, while exporters were active for certain types of lighter cattle, and farmers were active for the stores.
“There were some lovely Angus heifers in [the sale]. Angus cattle are in demand at the moment. It’s all down to bonuses and the processors are pushing for Angus cattle,” Drury added.
Weanlings are starting to appear at the Cootehill cattle sale.
“There was a pen of Charolais weanlings and a few nice Limousin weanlings also. One at 265kg and sold for €950, which would be very good money to be getting,” said the mart manager.
“Overall, the sale went well, with a very high clearance rate,” said Drury.
“Cattle are a good trade everything from the well-bred weanlings to overage bullocks sold well at the sale. Online customers are a great help. We are attracting buyers from all parts of the country.”
Cootehill Mart’s weanling sale will take place on Fridays from September 2. Friday evening sales will be for weanling bulls, heifers, sucklers and drop calves and Wednesday will see the sale of commercial heifers, bullocks and dry cows.
The weekly sheep sale takes place every Thursday at 6:30p.m and every four weeks, Cootehill Mart will host an organic cattle sale.