Rearing calves selling for £500 plus at auction

Beef finishers in search for replacements have been paying well in excess of £500 a head for rearing calves at livestock markets.

The calf trade has been buoyed up throughout the last year by exceptional finished prime beef prices, which lifted further above £7/kg deadweight this week.

Tight supplies of calves across the country have left those on the market in high demand.

See also: Livestock sales up by £220m at auction marts in 2024

Simon Fryer, commercial manager at livestock marketing group Meadow Quality, says calf prices continue to spiral upwards, with all beef- and dairy-cross calves rising by another £30-£40 this week.

An entry of 194 calves at Hereford Market on 22 April sold to a tremendous trade, with Belgium blue bull calves topping at £640.

Phil Jones, auctioneer at Hereford, said it was one of the largest entries they had seen in some time, with calves coming from as far as West Wales and Shropshire.

He added there was a lot of new buyer interest, with five or six buyers coming to the market for the first time.

Belgium blue bulls and heifers were being sold for between £500-£640 each, while a run of Friesians sold for between £100-£220 a head.

A new record entry of 1,083 rearing calves went under the hammer at Market Drayton last week for its Easter calf Show and sale, with 93 different calf purchasers.

Overall, 58 calves sold for in excess of £600 a head, and the top price on the day went to a Charolais bull calf, which made £930.

An entry of 180 British blue heifer calves averaged £362 a head, while a slightly smaller entry of Aberdeen Angus heifer calves levelled at £272.

Continental heifers were generally trading at about £300-£450, with the best going for in excess of £550.

Meanwhile, Friesian bulls at Market Drayton averaged £153 a head.

Beef supplies

British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) data shows the total GB cattle population decreased by 2% on the year to total 7.5m head of 1 January 2025.

A shrinking beef suckler herd has led to a reduction in new calf registrations, with 47,000 fewer calves registered during 2024.

Suckler beef calf registrations were down by 5% on the year, meanwhile beef calf registrations to dairy dams were up by 4%.