Northern rain just in time

At the time of writing, there has already been some reasonable rain across much of the north of the state with more forecast.

Going on what most producers are telling me, it is just in time as the recent lack of rain and strong winds was starting to jeopardize a good spring.

I am hearing that the Derwent Valley is looking pretty good as well as the Huon and parts of the Southeast. 

But a big section in the Midlands around Oatlands is in dire need of rain. 

The other challenge is that grubs have started to play havoc and as usual they take hold in the drier areas first.

The season in Victoria and Southern NSW is good but needs that next rain while further north into the middle and north of NSW is very dry. 

What does this all mean? In Victoria producers selling cattle are either taking the good prices and selling early (a couple of weeks ago there were 15,000 store cattle sold at Ballarat, Mortlake and Leongatha) or they are banking on a good spring and more weight and more money. 

Further north, producers are unloading cattle while the prices are still good and certainly sending big numbers of light lambs to the market.

Locally store cattle are selling well with some excellent sales on Auctions Plus.

Producers are being well paid for their finished product and so have a good budget for their replacements and this will continue unless the season turns dry.

I was interested to read a snippet from MLA about the national sheep flock numbers.

For the financial year 2024-25 the national breeding ewe numbers (ewes one year and older) was estimated at 43 million head and they estimate that the flock fell in late 2025 and early 2026 to closer to 40 million head (a record low). 

Basically a fall of about 10% in two years but weather permitting they are suggesting that we have hit the bottom and there are signs of a rebuild.

More lambs at Powranna

There was a slightly larger yarding of 794 lambs (346 more) at Powranna on Tuesday with more trade and heavy lambs and less light lambs. 

There were a few pens of new seasons lambs with processors paying $240 to $280 and restockers $200/head. 

The old lamb market was $5 to $10 cheaper with heavy pens making $284 to $320, trade $234 to $260, light trade $210 to $234 and light $108 to $130. Restockers bought light trade for $172 to $222/head.

There were 216 mutton and extra heavy sheep made $200 to $232, heavy $202 to $214 and medium $144 to $166/head.

There was a bigger number of 101 cattle with more store types included and way fewer cows. 

The good quality trade cattle sold to strong competition with yearling steers making 474c to 500c and heifers 430c to 492c while some secondary type steers made 350c to 385c/kg. 

There were only 25 cows penned and there were very few heavy cows and most were leaner and light cows. 

The heavy beef cows made 352c to 366c, leaner 306c to 320c and very lean 216c to 272c/kg liveweight.