Ballyjamesduff Mart hosted its weekly cattle sales, with dry cows and weanling bulls and heifers being sold on Wednesday (December 09) – alongside a special sale of 30 in-calf commercial heifers.
The mart also held their sale of bullocks and heifers on Tuesday (December 8).
AgriLand got in touch with John Tevlin, the mart’s manager, after Wednesday’s sale to get his views on the trade, after close to 800 head of cattle had passed through the ring this week. Commenting on Wednesday’s sale, he stated:
“It was a reasonable trade all round; the quality of weanlings may have been slightly down compared to other weeks but they were still a good trade.
It’s coming near the end of the year, sales are sort of winding down but we still had good numbers for the time of year. In fact, the smaller sale would have actually aided the trade somewhat.
“With it being the end of the tax year, the trade seemed to be driven on by farmers stocking their sheds for the Christmas period. The northern exporters also had a role to play.
“The continental weanling bulls sold up to €2.77/kg and back to €1.50/kg for more Friesian-bred bulls. Weanling heifers were in good demand too, the best price we had was €3.33/kg for a Charolais heifer.
“The dry cow trade peaked at €2.29/kg or €1,690 for a Limousin cow weighing 735kg. We also had a special sale of in-calf heifers which saw the top females command prices of over €2,000.”
Tuesday’s sale
Speaking about the sale of bullocks and heifers on Tuesday, John claimed:
“It was a good sale as well, bullocks would have been slightly dearer this week – with heifers recording a similar trade to the previous week.
The quality lots were proving to be selling better. Heavy and more forward-type continental bullocks were selling at €2.19/kg up to €2.30/kg.
“Lighter continental-bred store bullocks were trading at €2.50/kg back to €2.16/kg.
“There was a good demand for heavy heifers as they were selling up to €2.70/kg and back to €2.15/kg – again, this was mainly driven by the factory agents from the north. The tops of the lighter store heifers sold from €2.28-2.50/kg.”
On its final sale next week, the mart is hosting a special dispersal sale of 93 suckler cows next Wednesday (December 16) alongside 10 quality heifers in-calf to a Saler bull.
There will be 80 young cows consisting of second and third calving cows – which are all scanned in-calf to pedigree Charolais bull.