Cattle

Cattle are still a decent trade, with prices rolling along again from last week. As September comes to an end, we will soon be ramping up for Christmas and it will be interesting to see if the cattle are there. Angus still in the region of 410p.

With Storm Ali a distant memory, the Indian Summer has led to a slowing in the pace of cows coming forward so the trade remains firm. More needed, space still available for next week into a couple of outlets.

Store cattle available. All weights and sizes. Suckled beef calves available.

Sheep

Lamb prices have eased 5p in the last week with an abundance of lambs available across the UK. It seems the late Spring has resulted in lambs which would normally have forward in July-August being delayed until now and the upland lambs arriving off the hills on time as normal, with hauliers universally claiming this is the worst logjam in recent history!

Thankyou to all our producers for being patient in waiting for uplift, rest assured we are all working really hard to move lambs as fast as is possible. Standard weight lambs have been in the region of 380-385p during the last week. Light lambs are very difficult to sell at any price despite the very favourable currency conditions with the Euro sitting at 89p.

Looking back in previous years as shown below, the trade is holding up remarkably well given the volumes. One thing for certain, once we get through the peak there could well be a shortfall and that is probably why we are seeing a strengthening in the store ring for longer keep lambs.

2017… 351p                        2016… 377p                        2015… 306p                        2014… 318p

Organics

Scotch Organic cattle are finally taking a real hike, with base prices for next week jumping up to 440p. Organic lambs are really difficult to come by and we have sold them to 415p in the last week, with no waiting lists whatsoever. More needed urgently to maintain abattoir throughputs.