Mart Price Tracker

Apparently Abbeyfeale is going ok at present, I haven’t been there in years or watched any sales online so it’s only what I hear. Does Cahirciveen mart do much?

Castleisland has improved massively over the past year, they really upped their game coz if the gortatlea competition.

Abbeyfeale mart on a sat am suits a lot of part time beef lads that want to be physically present in a mart, reduce the haulage fees etc by doing it themselves

Listowel are authors of their own downfall, no appetite to even call to yards to look at cattle, a crying shame as location re traffic & mart facilities its one if the best in the country since they moved out of the town

Agree on all fronts. Castleisland is flying it since Neilus McAuliffe took it over.

I'm in West Limerick and Listowel has traditionally been our local go-to mart. But the previous manager stayed on too long imo, and didn't have the appetite for it in recent times. Hence, we started going to Castleisland. Thers's a new man at the helm in Listowel now, and he's sound, but has a tough job on his hands. Lots have been way down compared to Castleisland.

Listowel is after dropping off some amount in a few years, I'd always go there in the spring but it wasn't worth my while this year it was so small.

I don’t know anything about Listowel mart but I think it’s a bit harsh to say they’re authors of their own downfall for not calling to yards to look at cattle.

That’s a service that would be completely unheard of outside of Gortatlea and a few of its neighbouring competitors.

It’s probably a service that shouldn’t be necessary either. What benefit really are you going to gain by having someone look at them in the yard?

There is much more problems in Listowel. They actually have decent auctioneers. However last time I saw two of the regular family members stand in front of a lad bidding.

As well I hate going there to collect cattle if you got it at the end of the mart most if the loading points are blocked by a couple of regulars who park there trucks and trailers there before paying. You could be waiting 20-30 minutes to get a loading bay and 5-6 of them blocked up.

Have to disagree with you about calling to yards to look at cattle, mart owners/ managers do it to take photos for Facebook and see the cattle for to get business and to know the type of cattle to inform buyers what is coming to the sale, three marts I buy in will inform us when our type of cattle are coming to the sale, dumb priest never won no parish. A good owner/ manager will miss no chance to do business as opens lots of other doors in a auctioneers business, land setting, farm sales, house rentals etc.

mauty can’t be in 2 rings at the one time how ever good he still can’t do that of all the cattle sold there I’d say he surely buys between 10 and 20 % every week and sends them on to people he gets into the hauliers and agents with a few €50 gets the name and numbers and game over Mauty is the man Adam wouldn’t lace his boots

Still going strong after 1am, did it go on much longer?

Mauty has stood in my yard a few times, so has Adam, one of them is welcome to call anytime and that's Adam, some fella's love the sh*t Mauty fills them with, that's only my opinion others are welcome to theirs. I have to say Neilus was firing out the smart comments during the weanling heifer sale yesterday, probably no need for it but still was funny

The one in carnaross started at 11 in the morning and went on until after 2am

The bull sale started at 5 this evening and there are still 230 bulls left to be sold. It’ll be another late one.

God almighty that's an awful carry on, imagine bringing a beast out to the mart before breakfast and waiting until breakfast the next morning to sell her!

Seriously, what's the attraction there for either the buyer or seller? I'm not familiar with that side of the country is there no other mart within 50 miles or something?

From the midlands here so zero local knowledge of the mart but I’d be thinking the very same as you.

planting the farm would seem a better option than that craic.

where does animal welfare sit in all this?

Yea fair enough for a limited number of breeding stock or fancy U grades or that. The suckler sale would be viewed as a special sale so some pictures and detail beforehand would be expected but you’d hardly expect it as a regular service?

There’s 4 or 5k cattle a week going through Gortatlea and a lot of other marts these weeks. I still think it’s very harsh for anyone to turn their back on a mart because the manager didn’t call to see their stock before selling them. I think it’s an impossible ask.

There is no where I have said it’s wrong for people to turn their back on a mart for not calling to a yard, every mart is different and run different and what I am trying to say is we live in a new age of marts since Covid with online and to help that pictures etc help that and talking to marts about when to sell stock, a friend of mine had 36 fat heifers a couple of weeks ago rang the manager and was told only send one load that week as he had enough to suit the buyers that week and send the others the next week and send him a few pictures, he got on well bought weeks and a lot of the heifers went north. Just my humble opinion.