Spring lamb prices

Just got into sheep on a very small scale myself this year - 2 ewes with triplets and 2 pet lambs. Triplets were born in early march. Reckon they're 40 plus kg at the moment but hard to judge. Should I sell the now or hold off till heavier? Going killing 2, maybe 3.

Heavy Lambs €113 to €119 or €58 to €66 over €/kg
Factory Lambs €100 to €113 or €54 to €62 over €/kg
Store Lambs over 40kgs €87 to €100 or €44 to €54 over €/kg
Store Lambs over 30 kgs €78 to €93 or €40 to €50 over €/kg
Store Lambs over 35 kgs €65 to €80 or €35 to €48 over €/kg
Fat Ewes €100 to €133 per head
Feeding Ewes €66 to €100 per head
Suffolk Hogget Ewes €175 to €220 per head

Yday in blessington

Great money. It might be handier do B and B than buy stores.

some lads will dip their toe in with sheep, but very few will last. one or two hairy days lambing will see them run and vow never to have them around again. you need to have a really strict management regime in place for sheep and store lambs letting them off the trailer and shutting the gate and leaving them to it for a few months dosent work, these lads will be the same ones cursing they ever got into them come a wet and windy february evening.

sure sheep industry and sheep farming was always seen as poor mans farming enterprise, just look at the coverage it gets even in comparision to beef. dairy dominates everything and beef and tillage close behind, sheep are seen as an add on in farms. very few set themselves up to be sheep first and beef second. the sheep here are now main enterprise and get most focus and labour, you couldnt put in the labour hours with beef it doesent pay.

Cran wrote: »

78p a pound bottomed out at I remember, happened for a couple of years

Roughly €2.18/kg in today's terms not allowing anything for inflation.

Allowing for inflation of 60% around €3.50/kg.

what happened 30 years ago for the market to collapse was it purely ewe numbers ? i remember reading there were around 5 million ewes around 1992 in republic. whats the number now 2.3?

Dickie10 wrote: »

what happened 30 years ago for the market to collapse was it purely ewe numbers ? i remember reading there were around 5 million ewes around 1992 in republic. whats the number now 2.3?

There was very good subsidies for sheep then, one year there was a double subsidy as the subsidies were a year be hind so they issued twice in the one year.
could have been £30/ewe that year.
Am I remembering it right or does anyone remember ???????
The whole thing was abused anyway and the hills got overgrazed.
I shore sheep for people that could get them from the north, shear them, inspect them and factory them within a few weeks

farming93 wrote: »

The big lads who had sheep numbers here have converted to dairying. There's not a quarter of sheep farmers here as there was a number of years ago. I don't know what it's like anywhere else though.

The factories have alot to answer for as well. All the messing with imports to suppress prices over a number of years has meant lads just figured it wasnt worth the time working for nothing. Their just reaping what they sowed now.

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Lamb prices strong this week

What they quoting ?

wrangler wrote: »

There was very good subsidies for sheep then, one year there was a double subsidy as the subsidies were a year be hind so they issued twice in the one year.
could have been £30/ewe that year.
Am I remembering it right or does anyone remember ???????
The whole thing was abused anyway and the hills got overgrazed.
I shore sheep for people that could get them from the north, shear them, inspect them and factory them within a few weeks

Spot on but think ewe sub was nearer 20 pound at the time plus the DA got an extra top up as far as I know.
Remember getting the double payment one year.

The sub money was nice but the hogget price collapse on the Monday following the end of retention (late March/early April?) used to be spectacular.
Brought 75kg char. cross ewe lambs to Kilkenny for a neighbour that had them soley for the sub.These were the ones too heavy for the factory.
No feeding,just ran on grass and stubble from October till the earliest sale date possible after retention.

i never seen prices like that this time of year. great stuff. a hard brexit will have us all in dairy money yet.

what a bigger one is british lamb being brought across the border and and when there really stuck they go to carlisle mart and buy up lambs and bring them back to navan to slaughter as irish lamb, the lamb never grazed a blade of republic of ireland grass. surely there will be a duty on those lambs making it unsustainable. the other side of the coin is British lamb can t be sold into the EU without tax and duties making it too expensive for France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden the big importers of lamb. Leaves Ireland as the only European country of any scale with the market to themselves.NZ lamb quota not being filled at minute and wont be. NZ flock is diminishing every year as farmers convert more and more land to dairy, vast majority of NZ lamb going to Asia.