Optimism for lamb season

NOTHING like a bit of rain to put a smile of farmers faces! 

It was patchy with falls from 12mm to 50mm across the state with the North-West, North-East and Tamar Valley getting the most while the many parts of the northern Midlands and southern areas were more in the 10mm to 15mm range. 

The new season’s lambs in Tasmania usually don’t start coming to market until later in November but this week at Powranna we saw a few pens that sold exceptionally well. 

The top pens were bought to kill and made $188 to $235 (the top pen were very heavy) while restockers bought trade weights for $132 to $168 and very small $40 to $82 per head. 

As with most years there are store lambs being brought in from Victoria and judging by on Tuesday’s market restockers will be pretty strong on all local well bred lambs. 

There is certainly good confidence around the lamb job at the moment, with most interstate markets being dominated by new lambs and averages between 800c/kg and 850c/kg carcass weight in the saleyards – terrific money historically for this time of the year. 

It looks like there will be a shortage of heavy trade and heavy lambs moving forward as some of the later areas like western Victoria are experiencing a poor season.

On the other end I am hearing that the export markets are still good with the United States and China leading the way and although the Middle East is erratic we are still sending lambs into this market. 

It will be interesting to see how the lamb numbers come forward over the next couple of months and how prices react. Mutton prices are still holding. 

Although numbers were low at Powranna on Tuesday at 818 head, extra heavy sheep made $70 to $78, heavy $64 to $80, medium $52 to $72 and light $40 to $54 per head, with light and medium sheep the most expensive per kilo. 

On to the cattle front and last week Nutrien, Elders and AWN offered 1330 store cattle at Powranna in a yarding that lacked weight and finish. 

The well-bred lines of both steers and heifers sold well but the secondary types were again cheaper, in particular the very small cattle.

Heavy yearling steers over 400kg made $1260 to $1820 (averaging 330c/kg), medium (330kg to 400 kg) $540 to $1560 (330c/kg), light $360 to $1220 (345c/kg) and very small $460 to $520 a head. 

Heavy yearling heifers made $1080 to $1680 (285c/kg), medium $860 to $1080 (270c/kg), light $400 to $1020 (250c/kg) with very small $200 to $500 per head. 

As you can see there are very big ranges in prices which reflects breed and quality and this in turn was reflected in the average price per kilo.

One of the other highlights of the week was the cow sale at Powranna on Tuesday, where heavy beef cows made 298c/kg to 320c/kg liveweight.

This meant cows topped at $2500 and averaged $2087. Leaner cows sold for 256c/kg to 284c/kg and very lean 108c/kg to 248c/kg with competition from exporters and restockers.