Demand for quality stock sustained

Marts: Numbers of cattle on offer at the marts rose yesterday with the demand for quality stock remaining steady at unchanged prices.

Plain cattle remain hard to sell, a feature of the trade in recent weeks which has now become established as a pattern of the trade this autumn. That came as a direct fall out of the loss of the premium payments which in previous years underpinned the value of plain cattle.

Hardest hit are the progeny of the intensive dairy herds carrying a high percentage of Holstein blood, which are difficult to finish to beef and normally are poor graders.