A pedigree registered Belgian Blue heifer sold for what is understood to be one of the highest prices per kg – €16/KG – so far this year at Gortatlea Mart’s special E and U grade weanling heifer sale on Wednesday, May 24th, 2023.
The heifer is by Chocolat d’Ochamps, Bova AI’s 100% Red Belgian Blue bull – AI code: BB6634 – and is out of a LOTTO VD VLOEIKENSHOEVE (S964) daughter.
According to her breeder, Mark Casey, Co Kerry, she is “one to breed roans in the future”.
The September-2022-born ET heifer crossed the scales at 370kgs, and James McCarney’s hammer eventually fell at €5,920 to an online bidder.
Other sample prices in the weanling heifer ring at Wednesday’s sale include:
- BBX – 425kgs – €3,620;
- BBX – 405kgs – €2,180;
- BBX – 400kgs – €2,000;
- BBX – 410kgs – €2,020;
- BBX – 400kgs – €1,740;
- BBX – 420kgs – €1,800;
- BBX – 380kgs – €4,000;
- BBX – 315kgs – €2,700;
- BBX – 365kgs – €2,760;
- BBX – 360kgs – €2,340;
- BBX – 305kgs – €1,920.
Prices from the weanling bull ring as follows:
- LMX – 400kgs – €1,450;
- LMX – 410kgs – €1,380;
- LMX – 420kgs – €1,380;
- BBX – 460kgs – €1,460;
- CHX – 460kgs – €1,430;
- CHX – 455kgs – €1,370.
An interview with Maurice Brosnan – manager at Gortatlea Mart
To succeed as a mart manager, “it is very important to know the value of cattle and to know how to deal with people,” according to Maurice Brosnan, manager of Gortatlea Mart.
He took over the management and ownership of the mart in January 2014 from his late uncle, Sean.
Maurice left school at seventeen years of age to work for the late Jack McAuliffe as a pig farm manager in 1986 for nine years, looking after a 100-cow dairy herd and a 250-sow unit.
“I tried to take Fridays off to work with my uncle Sean at Gortatlea Mart,” he told www.thatsfarming.com
“Jack always encouraged me to buy my own cattle. He also had a big dairy herd the year my father died, and he purchased all the in-calf heifers my father had ready for sale.”
“After the untimely death of my father, I became more involved with farming and the cattle business. My late father and uncle Sean were well-known in the cattle trade and worked together as the Brosnan Brothers.”
“Brosnan would be a very well-known name in the cattle business; my father and my three uncles were all in the cattle fairs,” he added.
Read more about his career.
Other reports from Gortatlea Mart:
