Athenry Mart held its weekly sale of sheep on Monday last (November 2), which saw a “surprisingly” small entry of sheep being presented for sale.

The majority of the sheep on offer consisted of butcher and factory-finished lambs, with a small portion of the sale made up of store lambs and cast ewes.

AgriLand tuned into the online selling trading platform MartEye to see what the trade was like on the day.

The standout trade was for butcher lambs which regularly sold for in excess of €120/head. The top price on the day went to a pen of sharp-looking Suffolk lambs that sold for €126/head.

Prices of between €121/head and €124/head were regularly seen for lambs weighing in excess of 50kg, with slightly lighter lambs weighing 48-49kg making from €114/head up to €120/head.

Factory-fit lambs were also in high demand and sold strongly, with prices ranging from €106/head up to €115/head for lambs weighing between 43kg and 47kg.

The rest of the sale, as mentioned above, consisted of store lambs and cull ewes. The couple of pens of stores that were on offer were a good trade.

Those forward-type lambs, weighing above 39kg, made anywhere from €95-97/head, while slightly lighter stores, in the 34-37kg weight bracket, sold from €86/head up to €93/head.

Lastly, a small selection of feeding and heavy ewes were on offer at Athenry on Monday. Feeding ewes generally made from €77/head up to €83/head, while well-fleshed, heavy ewes traded from €111/head up to a tops of €127/head.