Methodology

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How to read IrelandCattlePrice.com data

Figures on the site carry one of three labels so you can see at a glance how much checking sits behind them.

Factory base quotes and mart reports are not one of those three levels. They carry their own named source and date instead (for example "IFA, 16 Sep 2026" or "GVM Kilmallock report, 28 Sep 2026").

Farmer price reports

Any farmer can report what they were paid, anonymously, with no login or account. Only two things are required: the factory and the price. A price can be typed as €/kg or c/kg — 6.50 and 650 are read the same way. Everything else is optional: number of cattle, total weight, total money received, type (steer, heifer, young bull, cow), grade, county, kill or payment date, bonuses and a free comment. If the farmer gives total weight and total money but no price, the c/kg is worked out from those two.

Reports can also be sent by text or WhatsApp to 087 337 6149 (factory and price is enough). Once entered, those follow exactly the same rules as reports made through the website.

The form saves a copy of the report on the farmer's own phone before sending and retries if the connection drops, so a price is not lost on a bad signal.

The quick form does not ask whether a price includes VAT. Most farmers quote the ex-VAT price per kg, but we cannot guarantee that for every report. Kill-sheet reports record the VAT basis from the document.

Where a farmer gives no kill date, the date the report was submitted is used and the report is flagged as "date assumed". Public farmer figures are grouped by the date a report was submitted, not by kill week.

Kill-sheet upload

Kill-sheet upload is a separate, optional route for a higher-quality report. A farmer uploads the factory kill sheet or remittance (PDF from the factory portal works best; photos are typed in by the farmer). The page reads the document, shows the farmer what it found, and the farmer confirms or corrects it before submitting. The document itself is stored privately and is never published; names, herd numbers, tag numbers, account and docket numbers are never shown.

A kill-sheet report is reviewed before it is published. Only once its figures have been checked against the uploaded document is it treated as Kill-sheet backed. The ordinary quick report stays the easiest way to report — the kill sheet is never required.

Anonymity and privacy thresholds

• No name, herd number, address, phone number or email is attached to a published price.
• The newest individual reports are listed on the homepage showing only the county (if given), the factory, the type of animal, how long ago it was reported and the price. Nothing else from the report is shown.
• No average is published for a type of animal until there are at least three independent reports for it in the date window. With one or two reports we say how many there are and wait.
• The "which factory paid best" table only shows a factory once it has at least three full batch reports in the window.
• If you think a published report could identify you, tell us and we will broaden or remove the identifying detail.

See the privacy policy for what personal information we hold and why.

Averages and the date window

Every public farmer figure on the site — the homepage summary, the report tab, the factory prices pages, Prices Today, the /prices page and the factory comparison table — is built from one shared set of reports using one date window: the last 30 days. Changing the window in one place changes it everywhere, so different pages can no longer disagree about how many reports there are.

• Average: the plain average of each report's own c/kg, for each type of animal, shown only with three or more reports. We use a plain average because most reports are price-only and carry no weight; a weight-weighted average would quietly ignore them.
• Range: the lowest and highest report in the window for that type.
• Report count: the number of independent reports — one report is one sale, however many cattle it covers.
• "Type not given": reports with no animal type are counted and shown separately; they are never mixed into the steer or heifer averages.
• Factory comparison: uses only full batch reports where the number of cattle, total weight and total money are all given and add up to the stated c/kg.

If the report data fails to load, the site says "Farmer report data temporarily unavailable". It never shows a loading failure as zero reports.

Dates and freshness

Every market figure shows its own date, and it is the date of the data, not the date the page was loaded. Factory quotes, farmer reports and official prices usually have different dates, so each one carries its own: the date a quote was published, the 30-day window for farmer reports, and the week-ending date for official prices.

• Data 0–3 days old is headed Today's cattle market.
• Data 4–7 days old is headed Latest cattle market, with "Last verified" and the date.
• Data 8 or more days old is headed Latest verified cattle market, and the "Last verified" date is highlighted.

Age is counted in Irish calendar days. Older verified figures are still shown — they are useful — but never presented as today's. If a figure fails to load, the page says the data is temporarily unavailable; it does not show a blank, a zero or an undated old number as if it were live.

Each metric has one source used on every page. Factory base quotes, the official average price paid and farmer-reported prices are three different measures and are always labelled separately; where the same metric (for example the official R3 steer price) is available from more than one file, every page shows the newest verified week.

Errors and outliers

Every report is stored. Nothing is deleted because the price looks high or low. Instead the database checks each report as it arrives:

• Reports with no usable price, a price outside the plausible band for that type, or figures that look like per-animal totals are held in a review queue and kept out of public figures until they are looked at. Kill-sheet uploads go to a separate private review queue and do not count in public figures until they have been checked.
• The plausible bands the database uses to flag a report for review are: steers, heifers and young bulls 300–1,000c/kg; cows 100–700c/kg; type not given 200–820c/kg.
• If we spot that the same sale has been reported twice, the duplicate is kept out of public figures. It is not deleted.
• Reports with no animal type, or with an assumed date, are published with that noted.
• On the public pages, a report only counts toward figures if its price is between 300c and 1,000c/kg and it has not been flagged as an unusual value.

The review is a check for obvious mistakes, not verification. A report that passes it is still Farmer reported, not verified.

Factory base quotes

Factory quotes are the base prices factories advertise for in-spec cattle — before bonuses. They come from published trade reporting (Bord Bia, IFA and Agriland factory-quote reports), are checked by an automatic updater twice a day and confirmed by hand, and are always shown with the date they were published. Reported "deals above quote" are shown separately and labelled as such. A base quote is not what a farmer is paid, and we do not subtract one from the other.

Official datasets

• Official average price paid: DAFM figures published through the EU Commission agri-food data portal. We show the R3 grade (not an all-grade average), including bonuses, excluding VAT, exactly as published — no VAT conversion is applied by us. These figures are published roughly two weeks after the week they describe, and are shown with their week-ending date.
• Weekly kill and exports: DAFM weekly figures and Bord Bia.
• GB prices: AHDB. EU prices: the EU Commission. Other official statistics come from the CSO.

Each official figure carries its source and the week or period it covers.

Mart data

Mart Watch lists marts across the Republic and Northern Ireland with sale days, contact details and online bidding links. Sale days are only shown where a recent source confirms them; contact details come from the marts' own websites and published directories. Missing details are left blank, never guessed.

Mart prices come only from reports a mart itself publishes (its website, weekly report or published lot list), or that it has given us permission to use. Where a mart publishes individual lots, we work out an animal-weighted average c/kg; where it publishes a "sample" of lots, we say it is a sample and not the whole sale. Ranges-only reports are quoted as ranges, never averaged. Northern Ireland marts report in pence per kg and are kept separate. Broad national mart indicators are labelled as national context, not the price at any one mart. Mart figures are liveweight; factory figures are deadweight — they are never compared directly.

Why same-week farmer reports matter

The official average price paid arrives about two weeks after the cattle are killed. Farmer reports arrive the same week. That is the reason the site exists — but it is also why farmer reports must be read with their limits in mind.

Limitations — read this before using the data

• Farmer reports are self-reported and, unless marked kill-sheet backed, not checked against factory dockets.
• They are a self-selected sample of farmers who choose to report — not a random or statistically representative sample of Irish cattle sales.
• Report numbers are still building. Small numbers give a wide, noisy range. We publish the count beside every figure so you can weigh it.
• Bonus schedules differ between factories, so two farmers with similar cattle can be paid differently for legitimate reasons that are not visible in the data.
• Carcass classification in Ireland is carried out by mechanical grading under Department supervision. We make no claim that grading is manipulated. The point we do make is that the farmer is not present when it happens.
• Advertising and sponsorship do not influence farmer-reported prices, market rankings, published datasets or editorial conclusions.

Use by researchers, journalists and educators

Aggregated data is available free of charge to universities, colleges, journalists and researchers working on beef prices. Contact us and say what you need.

Corrections

If you spot an error on this site, tell us at brendan.kennedy@irelandcattleprice.com and we will fix it and say that we did.

Last updated 3 October 2026 — rewritten to match how the site works today. Home · Factory prices · Marts by county · Privacy · Cookies