The Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) has confirmed that spring lamb supplies have increased in the past few weeks in Northern Ireland (NI). In keeping with seasonal trends, spring lamb numbers have been stepped up lately and accounted for 52.4% of throughput last week in NI.
Base prices from factories for spring lambs this past week have ranged from 610-620p/kg up to a 21kg carcass weight. Prices at the start of next week are anticpated to be the same at 610-620p/kg.
Looking at throughput last week, the total number of lambs/hoggets processed totalled 6,617 head which was back 705 head from the previous week. But this figure is ahead of what was processed during the same period as last year which was 4,826 head.
The deadweight spring lamb price last week was 589.2p/kg the LMC added, which was an increase of 1.4p/kg from the previous week. Meanwhile, the NI deadweight hogget prices decreased by 2p/kg from the previous week to stand at 557.2p/kg.
The trade at marts this past week was back on the previous weeks, with the volume of spring lambs coming through the system starting to increase. Spring lamb prices have ranged from 467p/kg up to 620p/kg over the past week, and hoggetts have ranged in price from 420p/kg up to 570p/kg.
The Livestock and Meat Commission figures show that the top reported prices for cull ewes ranged from £164-232/head across marts.