Big increase in sheep prices

THEY say that history rarely repeats exactly, but Irish sheep producers can prove that belief wrong, much to their economic benefit as prices for lambs rocket in the wake of the new outbreak of FMD in Britain.

The only noticeable changes from the experience of sheep farmers compared with the previous outbreak in Britain has been the more immediate price rise, and an even greater lift than before with returns in excess of 70c/kg within a few days.

At the factories the trend has continued this week. With the official quotes for base prices rising to 400c/kg (143p/lb) on Friday another 10c/kg (4p/lb) was on offer by Tuesday morning, and on the ground the general run of buying prices was around 10-15c/kg (4p-6p/lb) above the quotes.

In the marts prices were improved by up to €12/head for the lambs which were selling on Monday for up to €50 over E/kg.

With most of the season crop already sold, lamb supplies are currently tight and the restriction on supplies from UK will impact on demand in France, which is a key market for Irish exporters of lamb. The UK supply was just back to normal on the French market — after the previous FDM control restrictions — and creating strong competition for Irish suppliers with UK lamb selling below the Irish price.

The pressure on the Irish factories over the past days has been to source sufficient supplies to fill the void at a time of the year when supplies are tailing off.

At Fermoy Mart on Monday up to €103/head was paid for the tops of the lambs offer at a much bigger sale. The butchers lambs ranged €30 over to €50 over and factory lots made €20 over to E33 over.

There was 1,650 head on offer at Kilkenny Mart on Monday where the butchers lambs ranged €32 over to €490 over and factory lots sold for €30 over to €43 over.