While the beef trade continues to soar to new highs, the sheep trade is seeing price and weight limit cuts with hogget prices reduced by 40c/kg in cases over the past four weeks.

Procurement staff at sheep factories have described the sheep trade to Agriland as "poor" with some outlets reducing their kills for the four days this week.

Other outlets have said they are continuing to "avoid heavy lambs" with prices up to €8.80/kg reported for hoggets at the higher-end of the price scale.

Factories have not yet announced their opening price quotes for spring lambs and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association's (ICSA's) president Sean McNamara has said he is confident that the current price cuts will be short-lived.

This week, Irish Country Meats (ICM) is quoting €8.50/kg plus a 20c/kg Quality Assurance (QA) bonus for hoggets leaving €8.70/kg on offer here up to 23kg carcass weight. This week's price is down 20c/kg on last week.

ICM is quoting €5.00/kg for cull ewes - the same price as last week.

Kepak is quoting €8.45/kg plus a 15c/kg QA bonus leaving €8.60/kg on offer here for hoggets up to 23kg. The Roscommon-based outlet is quoting €5.00-5.10/kg for cull ewes.

Kildare Chilling has no official quote for hoggets this week and is quoting €5.20 plus a 10c/kg QA bonus for cull ewes.

Ballon Meats in Co. Carlow is quoting €8.60/kg for hoggets - back 20c/kg on last week and €5.50/kg for cull ewes up 20c/kg on last week.

Maam Cross Mart in Co. Galway, hosted its weekly sheep sale on Saturday, March 15, with a full clearance in both the sheep and cattle sales.

Ram lambs averaged €3.00/kg to as high as €3.25/kg for nine ram lambs weighing 35kg that made €115. A pen of six ram lambs weighing 41kg sold for €130/head.

Ewe lambs average €3.75/kg and made up to €4/kg for a pen of 13 ewe lambs with an average weight of 34kg making €136/head. The top price/head for ewe lambs was €140 for nine ewe lambs weighing 40kg.

Breeding ewes averaged €96/head to a maximum of €172 for a 76kg ewe. Cull ewes averaged €1.70/kg and made up to €2.20/kg. A pen of five cull ewes weighing 58kg made €100/head.