Market Talk - season forcing record turn off

As the season in South Eastern Australia gets even worse heading into winter and many farmers have not only got no grass but have also run out of water, the turn off of both sheep and cattle has become almost record breaking.

The prime and store cattle sales in Victoria, South Australia and Southern NSW have seen saleyards overflowing. At Mortlake in Western Victoria they had to cap store cattle sales as there have already been 220,000 cattle sold this financial year.

The last full financial year saw only 169,000 yarded.

Luckily the season in Northern NSW and Queensland is pretty good and so that is where most of the southern cattle are going.

The prime cattle markets are also overflowing with Wagga yarding over 8,000 head two weeks in a row and this is the same trend in the big saleyards at Wodonga, Leongatha and Mortlake.

Smaller lamb yarding THERE was a smaller yarding of 1,257 lambs (300 less) at Powranna on Tuesday and the prime market recovered last week’s drop to improve $10 to $15/head while restockers put a very solid floor in the market.

Heavy lambs made $195 to $210 and trade $178 to $206 while restockers paid $104 to $154 for light trade and $76 to $140 for light lambs.

There was a bigger number of 2,033 mutton (356 more) with a good mix of heavy and medium weight sheep. 

The market lost all of last week’s rate with heavy sheep $40 to $50 easier and medium weights $25 cheaper. 

Extra heavy sheep made $144 to $166, heavy $120 to $146, medium $90 to $142 and light $38 to $110 depending on skin value.

There was much smaller yarding of 122 cattle (83 less) with about 60% being cows.

The trade market improved 15c to 30c with yearling steers selling for 280c to 352c and heifers 270c to 316c and the few grown steers 320c to 334c/kg.

There were 70 cows with most store types. Following interstate trends heavy cows averaged 30c cheaper making 210c to 240c while leaner made 170c to 210c and very lean D1 cows 80c to 160c. Heavy bulls made 200c to 220c/kg liveweight.

These big numbers are starting to test prices with many young cattle quoted 20c to 30c cheaper on Monday while cows fell a similar amount.

The biggest issue is that in the southern regions, including Tasmania it is getting very late for autumn and the prospect of a long, hard winter is looming. Last week at Powranna agents yarded 2,687 store cattle which included a pretty good line-up of weaners and yearlings and for this time of the year I thought the cattle were in good order.

The sale was way better than most predicted with competition from the North West, North East and Northern Midlands of Tassie with a few getting a boat trip with a B-Double load going into Queensland.

Heavy weaner steers (330 + kg) made $1,300 to $1,490 (av.380c), medium (280-330 kg) $840 to $1,420 (380c), light (200-280 kg) $620 to $1,000 (345c) and very small $360 to $700. Heavy yearling steers made $1,340 to $1,600, medium $1,080 to $1,420 and lighter $1,080 to $1,280. The few heavy heifer weaners made $950 to $1,320, medium $780 to $960 (287c), light $460 to $850 (285c) and very small $380 to $580. Medium weight yearling heifers made $960 to $1,400 (300c).

There were 42 cows and calves and the tops made $2,150 with most $1,150 to $1,625 and lighter $660 to $850 per unit.

Lamb markets have held their recent quotes but mutton prices have jumped up and down like a yo-yo but are still at very good levels with quotes around the 500c/kg range quite common.

Supply and demand will play a big part in all the livestock categories going into the next few months.