The mart trade has seen a big boost this week with a number of factory feeders back out in force trying to buy both short keep and long keep cattle.

July is one of the quietest months in marts. The good trade through the spring and early summer of 2025 has meant a lot of cattle have already been sold so marts are even smaller this year.

It’s also been a pretty good grazing year all across the country so there is no pressure on farmers to offload stock. Many of these summer grazing farmers who purchased cattle last back end or earlier this year are looking at much higher replacement costs so are deciding to sit tight and feed on with the cattle that they have at the moment.

Tight supplies

A number of larger feeders have got the nod from factories to gear up again with stock. Factories are now staring into an autumn of very tight cattle supplies and are putting plans in place to try and avoid issues in the back end with cattle supplies.

Factory agents are also scouring the country looking for cattle with some even contacting live exporters this week to see if some of the heavy weanlings which have been purchased for export in the last few weeks could be bought for an autumn finish.

Dry cows are in short supply and remain a very good trade in marts. Top quality dry cows with weight and flesh are back up at €4/kg and over it this week.

Good quality store cows are trading for €3.50-€4/kg with dairy cows lacking weight and flesh back at €2.60-€3.00/kg. Suckler cows with calves at foot also continue to meet very good demand with top quality outfits now coming close to €3500.

More average quality cows and calves are being bought at €2600-€2850 while poorer suckler cows with age not on their side are generally selling for €2000-€2500.

Top quality dairy cows are also hitting high notes with over €3000 paid for in milk cows at a few sales this week. Taking a look at this week’s Martbids analysis table, we see that it’s another week of green arrows showing increases across the board for almost all categories and weights of stock.

Heavy bullocks

Heavy bullocks saw a good rise with top quality bullocks over 600kg coming in at €4.39/kg this week. Some of the prices paid for finished bullocks in marts this week would translate into over €8/kg when kil out calculations are completed.

This would suggest that there is more in the beef trade and for smaller finishers the mart is still the place to go to get value.

Average quality store bullocks in the 400-500kg being purchased for grazing or further indoor finishing came in at €4.14/kg this week, up 6 cent/kg on the previous week.

Heifers also seen a decent lift this week with prices up 20 cent/kg. Top of the range heavy heifers over 600kg came in at €4.50/kg this week, up 17 cent/kg on the previous week.

Lighter bull weanlings wee back a little touch this week with heavier bull weanlings being the stock of choice for buyers this week. Top quality bull weanlings in the 450kg+ weight bracket were up 21 cent/kg this week to €5.54/kg. Bull weanlings in the 400-450kg weight bracket were up 15 cent/kg to €5.78/kg on the back of big exporter demand.