Lamb prices remain above those of last year, although values have weakened a little in recent weeks.
In the week to July 18, the average deadweight price was 480p/kg 15.7 per cent more than the year before.
Average liveweight prices during the week were 223p/kg, which was 23.0 per cent more than last year.
In the four weeks to July a total of 853,310 GB sheep were slaughtered according to AHDB estimates, that was 5.3 per cent less than last year.
Since the beginning of March throughput has been down 11.3 per cent to 4.172 million head.
Demand has been given a boost this week as the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha takes place.
Despite this there are still a considerable number of sheep to come onto the market.
Breeding
At the end of 2019, the number of lambs under one-year-old were at 16.672 million, 0.3 more than the year before, according to Defra estimates, with the female breeding flock down 1.5 per cent to 16.035 million.
Global beef and lamb markets appear to be strong, although the US market is still affected by coronavirus cases in meat plants.
Average Australian prices for beef and lamb remain at record levels.