Last week’s cattle kill dropped by a massive 2,730 head, bringing the total number of cattle slaughtered to 24,227 head, the lowest kill of cattle this year to date.

Last week’s kill was 8,473 lower than the same week in 2024. To put this into context, at an average carcase weight of 320kg, that’s 874 tonnes less beef processed in Irish factories last week compared with the previous week.

Last week’s kill saw just 7,125 heifers killed, a drop of almost 1,400 on the previous week. The cow kill dropped by just over 550 head to 5,879 head, while the bullock kill came back by 366 head.

Major challenges

The low kill is causing major challenges in processing circles about their ability to fill supermarket contracts.

Many processors have dropped their killing days to match the supplies, with some only working half days this week.

The drop in numbers is good news for beef finishers, who had seen up to 70c/kg wiped off base prices in the last two months. The drop in supplies has creating an upturn in quotes that farmers are receiving this week.

Competition is fierce, with some of the smaller independent factories having to increase their quotes by 20c/kg this week in order to get cattle.

Others have started to offer flat prices and free haulage in a bid to guarantee that they get the cattle that they would be normally used to from their suppliers.

Base prices

Bullocks are working off a €7.20/kg to €7.30/kg base price, while heifers are being quoted at €7.30/kg to €7.45/kg, with the smaller factories at the higher end of quotes.

Farmers are advised to dig in hard, with factories now desperate to secure supplies for the next number of weeks.

Grass cattle have been slow to come on stream, with any heavy forward cattle that would normally have been killed now already slaughtered in spring as finishers tried to capitalise on higher prices and finish animals indoors as opposed to going to grass.

The tightness in numbers has also injected more life into the mart trade. Some smaller finishers are reporting the equivalent of €8/kg deadweight and above it being achieved in marts this week, with factory agents very active buying forward store and factory-fit cattle.