Market Talk - Cattle markets on the way up

Interstate cattle markets continue to show slight improvement each week as we head into the middle of winter and locally at Powranna we have seen significant improvement over the past couple of weeks with most yearlings making over 400c/kg.

To put that in perspective only a month ago we struggled to get over 300c/kg.

These better prices have been brought about by a general shortage of cattle and extra restocker competition with local butchers having to fight for their share.

In Victoria and NSW feed lot buyers are prominent particularly on Angus steers and heifers over 400 kg with steers making between 420c and 480c/ kg liveweight.

Last week there was an increase in cattle yarded in NLRS reported saleyards (most of yards in Australia) with a total of just over 75,000 head which is more than the weekly average of 63,000 (taken over the last three years) and with a few more going to feeders and restockers.

Cow markets have been the stand-out over the last few weeks as the shortage of grinding beef in the US starts to affect prices. Overall state cow averages differed with Victoria averaging 345c, NSW 313c and Queensland 288c/kg liveweight.

Going forward, obviously a lot depends on the upcoming spring seasonal conditions but the general feeling around the traps is that there will be a general shortage of cattle right through the Eastern states which in turn will have an effect on prices.

Lamb prices continue to break records but just in general averages are starting to sit between 1,100c and 1,200c/kg carcass weight which in itself is in record-breaking territory.

The general shortage of lambs over 26kg in interstate saleyards is causing the price spike and that is with some works cutting back to 3-4 days per week or taking a couple of weeks off for maintenance.

At Powranna on Tuesday the number of lambs fell but more importantly there were hardly any heavy lambs and not a lot of good quality trade lambs which was surprising given the very good prices over the past few weeks.

There was one outstanding heavy pens that set a new record at $380/head. Next week will tell a story but I think most think that we are starting to get near the end of the heavy lambs for a while.

Mind you, there are still big numbers of lambs going to Victoria for processing.

There are some forward contracts about in NSW at around 1,150c/kg up until October which probably indicates that some don’t think there won’t be much price correction until later in the spring when there are more new seasons lambs about.

Interesting to note that for the last financial year there were 42,812 cattle and 155,928 sheep and lambs sold through.

The Powranna saleyards which are impressive numbers.