Spring cattle market set to fire

Spring bull sales are hoping to achieve good prices on the back of a buoyant beef market and long-awaited rain bringing confidence in feed supplies through summer.

However two dry seasons in southern Australia have depleted breeder numbers so it’s hard to judge demand, according to Landfall Angus director Frank Archer. 

Landfall, at Dilston, will offer 300 bulls in its spring sale on September 17 and is the biggest offering in a flurry of private sales and a multi-vendor sale at Powranna.

Tasmania has two main sale seasons, spring and autumn, with most bulls sold as 18-month to two-year-olds at a time to best correlate to the preferred timing for joining of cows.

Buyers at the upcoming sales will be looking to have calves on the ground next spring.

Quarterway Angus at Scottsdale has a sale on September 18, Cluden Newry at Longford on September 19 and Sillwood Poll Shorthorn at Carrick on September 30.

The multi-vendor Tasmanian Spring Angus Bull Sale at Powranna will take place on September 19 featuring Tolivar, New River, Londavra, Barnett and Island Angus stock.

At the back end of the busy calving season, with nearly 3000 calves to be tagged and weighed, preparing for the sale at Landfall has been frantic.

“There’s a lot of work just in making the videos for online, but the bulls are looking nice and our focus is on providing good value bulls and good value genetics,” Mr Archer said.

“We’ve had a good amount of interest from mainland commercial beef breeding operations  looking for seed stock and the spring sale is always different to the autumn sale which had one of our lower clearance rates with about 10 percent passed in.

“What we experience mirrors what happens in the cattle market generally with supply and demand flowing on to bulls, we ride the highs and experience the lows along with our client base so we try not to get carried away with numbers.”

At Powranna, New River Angus from Ringarooma will have six 18-month-old bulls and for the first time, four yearlings, in the multi-vendor sale.

Owners Michael and Sarah Mather said they are offering the yearlings to give clients some new genetics a year earlier which can create a lower cost per calf for the breeder.

Michael has been breeding Angus for more than 30 years but the couple only started their own stud in 2020.

“The bulls are looking pretty good and just starting to shine up coming out of winter,” Mrs Mather said.

“We haven’t had a lot of feed so the bulls have been prioritised and we’ll be hoping for a 100 percent clearance rate.

“Our main objective is breeding for structure and docility followed by phenotype which covers physical traits like height, weight, body depth and muscle mass as well as carcass weight and growth rate.”

Elders stock agent Chloe McFarlane said that vendors will be looking for the best possible genetics and figures that promote qualities such as calving ease, calving weight and eye muscle fat scores, but the experienced farmer will also take a good long look over the fence to check out a bull’s conformation.

“Ideally you want the best of both worlds but some buyers are looking more for better structure while others will fixate on the figures.

“It’s very farmer dependent but we encourage farmers to remember that a bull might have the best figures but it still has to last them in terms of soundness.”

While the Angus breed dominates the meat industry in Tasmania, spring sales will also include poll shorthorn and hereford cattle.