Heavy lambs dominated the sale at Delvin Mart on Thursday (December 3), as prices reached €133/head on two occasions.
AgriLand tuned into the sale, which lasted just over an hour. It was mainly butcher and factory lambs on offer, with a couple of pens of forward-store and long-keep lambs on offer as well.
Also Read: 'The sheep trade has been unbelievable; I’ve seen stores making nearly €3.50/kg'A couple of pens of ewes were also presented for sale which resulted in a top price of €124/head for a pen of well-fleshed ewes.
Heavy lambs in strong demand
There was no let up in the trade for butcher lambs at Delvin Mart on Thursday, with the majority of these lots hitting the €130/head mark on a number of occasions.
Prices for 50kg+ lambs started out at the €127/head mark and sold up to as far as €133/head.
Sample butcher lamb prices:
- 12 ram lambs weighing 54kg sold for €130/head or €2.41/kg;
- 10 ewe lambs weighing 56kg sold for €133/head or €2.38/kg;
- 10 ewe lambs weighing 54kg sold for €129/head or €2.38/kg;
- 10 ewe lambs weighing 50kg sold for €127/head or €2.54/kg;
- 13 ram lambs weighing 53kg sold for €127/head or €2.40/kg;
- 12 ram lambs weighing 55kg sold for €130/head or €2.36/kg;
- Seven ewe lambs weighing 55kg sold for €131/head or €2.62/kg.
Factory lambs
There was a good number of factory-type lambs on offer and these lots were met with a firm demand.
43-47kg lambs generally sold from €108/head up to €123/head. Ewe lambs in this weight bracket generally sold stronger, with ram lambs and particularly lamb lacking that bit of flesh, selling for a little less on most occasions.
One pen of mountain-type lambs weighing 44kg sold for €98/head, but asides from that the rest of these lambs sold from €108/head and upwards.
Sample factory lamb prices:
- 14 lambs weighing 46kg sold for €116/head or €2.52kg;
- Three ram lambs weighing 44kg sold for €110/head or €2.50/kg;
- Two ewe lambs weighing 45kg sold for €117/head or €2.60/kg;
- Three ram lambs weighing 47kg sold for €123/head or €2.62/kg;
- 10 ram lambs weighing 44kg sold for €114/head or €2.59/kg;
- Seven ewe lambs weighing 46kg sold for €117/head or €2.54/kg;
- 18 ewe lambs weighing 43kg sold for €110/head or €2.55/kg.
Stores
There wasn’t a huge amount of store lambs on offer, but again those forward-type lambs were in good demand, with prices rising to €107/head for a pen of 14 lambs weighing 40kg.
Prices for those forward-store lambs ranged from €97/head up to €107/head. There was a limited amount of long-keep stores on offer; however, one standout price was €92/head for a pen of 13 ewe lambs weighing 34kg.
Prices for those long-keep stores ranged from €70/head up to €80/head in general.
Cull ewes
As mentioned already, heavy cull ewes sold up to €124/head on the day. There were very few of those well-fleshed ewes on offer, with mainly forward-feeding types on offer.
In general, those ewes requiring a bit more feeding sold from €85/head up to €96/head, with a couple of light store ewes making back to as much as €67/head.