First sale of reopened Cootehill Mart
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Ben Clarke with Peter King checking out the stock at the first sale at Cootehill Livestock Mart. Alex Coleman.Image 2 of 3
Sean Higgins from Kill checking out the cattle at the opening sale. Alex Coleman.Image 3 of 3
Sharon Weir with her father 93 year-old Archie Drury at the re-opening of the mart. Alex Coleman.The new owners of Cootehill Mart report that their first sale exceeded expectations.
Operating with the Drury family at the helm, last Friday saw them welcome weanlings, suckler cows and suck calves into the sales ring.
“It went better than expected,” Steven Drury told the Celt. “The Department’s licence only came through last week so we hadn’t done a very big advertisement campaign on it, yet we still had 227 lots booked in which was brilliant.
“It was a great sale – heifers were making up on €3.15 a kilo, bull calves making up on €2.90 a kilo, which is definitely top of the market.”
These being Covid times, the sale was conducted online, and smooth running of the new computer system has given them encouragement to look to the future with confidence:
“The system is brand new, so a lot of people were registering, and are still registering, so we’d expect the next sale to be even stronger again,” explained Steven. “If it goes on the way it’s started, we would be delighted - that’s some of the best prices we’ve seen all year in any mart, so that’s very encouraging overall.”
The Drurys will have to wait a while before they can conduct their first live sale with bidders at ringside.
“We spoke to the Department about this last week and they have no indication at all – it’s all based on NPHET and government advice,” he said, and suggested “the very earliest” would be May.
Sheep sales got underway on Tuesday at 6pm, and their main cattle sale will be held on Wednesday from 11am.