Farmers queue up to buy cattle

The January sales in many department stores will see retailers slashing prices on unsold stock, and long queues forming by those afraid of missing out on a bargain.

December in the cattle trade can, on occasion, see buyers develop an equally blinding ambition to beat all comers to what they perceive to be a rapidly reducing supply of stock as they battle to fill their quotas.

Beginning in Corrin on Tuesday, where Sean Leahy told me that despite a good turn out for the day of the year and an excellent trade, overall “we had less factory cattle and fewer cows”. Numbers of heifers were maintained although it was noticeable that perhaps the quality wasn’t as good as recently, Sean said.