New season lamb at €80 over

Marts: The first of the new season lambs have arrived at the marts within the past 48 hours just in time for an early Easter where they met with very good demand from butchers to supply customers waiting for the festive season dish.

The butchers have paid up to €121/head for the new arrivals which was equivalent to €80 over. The highest price was recorded at Kilkenny Mart where a pen of 10 new season lambs weighing 41kg sold for €121/head.

The spring lambs sold for €65 over to €80 over. A pen of 10 weighing 39kg made €111, and a pen of five weighing 37kg fetched €104.

The 2008 lambs also made their first appearance at Ennis Mart yesterday where the trade was equally strong. The top price was paid for a pen of lambs weighing 47kg which sold for €120.

In contrast, the trade for the hoggets is showing very little change with most of the processors quoting a base price of 400c/kg (143p/lb). The exception has been Kepak at Hacketstown which opened for the week on a base of 406c/kg, a price which was maintained for yesterday’s kill. There was fewer of the plants slaughtering yesterday with supplies going to France remaining low but selling at a premium of up to 30c/kg — at 450c/kg for Grade I — over the British lamb.

Prices in Britain have increased over the past week by the equivalent of 8c/kg at the live sales and there has been a corresponding increase at the factories.

In the marts there was a large entry of 1,100 head at Kilkenny with a steady trade overall. Butcher’s hoggets sold for €32 over to €47 over and the factory hoggets made €30 over to €46 over.

At Kanturk yesterday, the butchers paid up to €41 over for the hoggets and factory hoggets ranged €28 over to €32 over.

There was 600 head on offer at Fermoy where the butchers paid €80/head to €122/head, equivalent to €30 over to €63 over for heavy lots. The factory lots ranged up to €76/head or €30 over and back to €20 over.