There are farmers selling spring lambs in one pen and selling the ewes that they were reared off in the pen beside them.
This was what the sheep chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Kevin Comiskey told Agriland in what he described it as being a “very bad sign” and that soaring input costs have forced some farmers hands into cutting back numbers or getting out altogether.
Speaking to Agriland Kevin said: “It’s a very bad sign when you’re seeing farmers selling spring lambs and then selling the ewes they were reared off in the pen beside them.
“I was looking at a mart report at the weekend from a mart my side of the country and just to compare, I looked back to the same date last year to see what the difference in prices were.
“It didn’t make for good reading I can tell you, with a 50kg spring lamb this time last year making €175/head, while at the weekend there, a 50kg spring lamb was only making up to €160-165/head.
“That’s back €10-15/head on last year where really prices should be €20-30/head ahead of last year’s to compensate for the serious rise in input costs farmers are being faced with.”
Looking at the trade at the start of this week, Kevin said it was positive to see spring lamb prices moving forward.
He added: “It’s a good sign to see the prices for spring lambs going up a bit anyway. The fact that they are scarce is helping that, but it’s good to see them moving on a bit all the same.
“If we have a good summer where grass growth was good and prices stayed or improved on where they are, there would be a bit more out of them.
“But with the concentrates fed to ewes over the last number of months and even the lambs, at the level prices are at now, there won’t be that big of margins to be made out of them.
“Hopefully now that grass has started to push on, lambs will thrive that bit better and that prices will move on that bit more again in the weeks ahead,” Kevin stated.