Powranna sale buyers bouyant

THE cold and windy start to this year’s spring is the main talking point around the saleyards as farmers wait with bated breath for some warm weather to make sure we end up with a good spring. 

On a more positive note buyers were in a buoyant mood at Powranna last week when Nutrien yarded 817 store cattle (numbers capped to fit in the shed as the outside yards are too wet) with most being yearlings and the quality was much better than the August store sale.

Most prices improved $50 to $150 and especially the small cattle that suffered at the previous sale. Heavy yearling steers (over 400 kg) made $1600 to $1800 (av. 422c/kg live), medium (330- 400 kg) $1450 to $1700 (450c), lighter (200-330 kg) $860 to $1500 (430c) and very small $600 to $850/head. 

Heavy yearling heifers sold for $1360 to $1600, medium $110 to $1540 (355c), lighter $760 to $1080 (350c) and very small $580 to $640/head. 

There was competition from all over the state and from a couple of small feedlots. It is interesting to take a look at the Mortlake (Western Victoria) store sale on the same day where they yarded 4,500 head and the per kilo prices weren’t that much higher than ours. 

Lamb prices have held up pretty well over the last couple of weeks with the national indicators sitting between 780c and 800c/kg carcass weight and as the Northern Victorian and NSW saleyards start to be dominated by new season lambs there is a shortage of the very best quality heavy lambs and a bigger percentage of unfinished lambs indicating the poor season in some areas.

The big yards like Wagga, Forbes and Dubbo are attracting big numbers and at this point in the early spring I would think that producers would pretty happy at the current prices levels. 

Obviously from now through to Christmas the number of finished lambs available to be processed will be the key with the number that usually come out of Western Victoria likely to be much lower because of their very average season. It is interesting to note that this time last year most lamb prices were sitting around 500c/kg. 

On the other side, mutton prices have come back significantly with not many sheep making over $100 in interstate saleyards and locally on Tuesday at Powranna most heavy sheep made $62 to $76 while medium weights $42 to $58/head. 

In interstate markets most sheep are being quoted between 250c and 300c/kg carcass weight and although a fair bit lower than a month ago, it is certainly way better than the 60c to 80c/kg 12 months ago.