From Our Blog

After two and a half years in development, MartEye Studio officially launched last Friday with Hexham & Northern Marts — our very first live customer. From scanning sheep in the pens to emailing invoices post-sale, the full end-to-end system ran smoothly. Hexham’s team have been instrumental in shaping Studio with their feedback and support, and we’re proud to call them pioneers. This is just the beginning.

During COVID, marts were shut down and farmers’ stress levels shot up. Mart managers didn’t know what to do or where to start. But amongst the few good things that came out of COVID, online bidding was one of them.

At MartEye, we’ve worked closely with livestock markets across the UK and Ireland to understand the real-world challenges of running sales day in and day out. One question we hear often is: “Where is the server?” Or even more pointedly: “Will we still need to run a local one?”

From Hexham to Ballymena, Tullow to Tullamore, livestock marts have long stood at the centre of rural life across the UK and Ireland. For over a century, these markets have connected farmers, shaped communities, and underpinned agricultural economies. Today, as marts digitise and evolve, it’s worth reflecting on where they came from - and what they still mean.

Livestock movement tracking is one of the most important aspects of running a compliant livestock mart. Whether you’re selling store lambs in Scotland or dairy heifers in Kilkenny, accurate traceability is a legal requirement — and a cornerstone of responsible farming. In this post, we break down how livestock movements are recorded, regulated, and reported across the UK and Ireland, and how MartEye Studio supports these systems natively.