Processors test cattle farmer resilience

IT has been a testing week on the market for cattle farmers, with the change in the weather putting pressure on to sell finished cattle and ease stocking levels, and factories fighting shy of showing their hand on prices, and testing the resilience of sellers.

With many factories advising that they were not quoting for cattle, it was left to a minority to show their hand, and those coming up front were paying similar to or close to last week’s prices.

Dawn Meats at Midleton quoted prices similar to last week’s, at 263 and back to 252 cents/kg (94p to 90p/lb) for R and O grades, and the Dawn factory at Waterford were on the same level. They were offering 269 cents/kg (96p/lb) for U grade animals.