Heavy cattle have eased a little in marts over the last week, with factory cuts starting to affect the mart trade slightly across the country.

It’s fair to say marts haven’t seen the same drop as farmers selling cattle direct to factories have, but they are still back a little in the last three weeks.

Factory agents are still very hungry for cattle around mart rings, but probably haven’t been able to hit the highs of a month ago, with their wings being clipped a little to pull back in line with the factory quoted beef price.

That being, said there is still more money being paid in certain cases for factory cattle in marts as opposed to factory lairages.

I saw a 565kg Aubrac heifer sold in Ballyjamesduff Mart on Tuesday for €2,250. Add €100 on for commission, haulage and killing costs and she needs to come into €7.70/kg without paying the agent anything for buying her.

She was an R= at best, so if she ticked all the boxes for movements and QA and ignoring the residency requirement, she would come into €7.50/kg carcase weight at this week’s quotes, so worth 20c/kg or over €60/head better off in the mart.

I know she is an isolated case, but there has been similar money paid for finished heifers in marts around the country this week.

Exporters continue to drive the weanling trade, with big pressure on to fill boats.

Calf exporters also continue to move big numbers of calves out of the country on a weekly basis.

Mart managers have reported that calf exporters have indicated that they are going to continue to export calves for the next few weeks. Traditionally, the calf export trade would have tailed off at this stage of the year.

Calf exports are currently running 14% or 25,000 calves ahead of the 2024 figure, with further increases expected in the coming months, as customers in countries such as Spain continue to source Irish-bred dairy-beef calves.

There is a also a market for reared calves, with mart managers reporting a lot more reared calves coming to the market in the last few weeks compared with other years.

Weanling exports also continue to perform very strongly, with almost 9,000 extra weanlings exported form Ireland in 2025 compared with 2024.

Martbids

Taking a look at this week’s Martbids analysis table, we see that the bullock and heifer trade saw prices easing a little again this week, with both categories of stock dominated by red arrows.

Heavy cattle in the 600kg-plus weight categories saw some of the largest falls, with top-quality heavy heifers back 13c/kg on last week, while top-quality heavy bullocks were back 21c/kg on last week.

The correction in the trade wasn’t just confined to heavy cattle, with the weanling trade also back a touch on the previous week.

Top-quality weanlings in the 300kg to 400kg weight bracket came in at €5.60/kg this week, back 13c/kg on last week.

Heifer weanlings met a better trade, with top-quality animals in the 300kg to 400kg bracket coming in at €5.45/kg, up 19c/kg on last week.