Dry spurs see the saleyard surge

A TOUGH season has seen a big lift in the number of livestock sold through Tasmanian saleyards in the past year.

The number of cattle sold in Tasmanian saleyards surged by 28.6 per cent, the biggest jump in the country, while sheep sales also lifted by 3.7 per cent.

 In the National Livestock Reporting Service’s 2023-2024 Saleyard Survey report, data shows the number of cattle sold through Tasmanian saleyards rose to 45,184 up from 35,126 in 2022-2023. 

Sheep numbers also jumped to 126,644 from 122,088 the year before.

NLRS operations manager for Meat and Livestock Australia, Stephanie Pitt, said the sur vey tracked saleyard through put across all states except the Northern Territory. 

“There were just over 18.5 million transactions made across sheep and cattle, an in crease of 2.1 million compared to the previous financial year,” she said. 

Most of the state’s major live stock sales are held at the Tasmanian Livestock Exchange facility at Powranna. 

Elders Tasmanian livestock manager Greg Harris said difficult seasonal conditions, especially during autumn, had seen many producers sell more stock through the saleyards this year. 

He said the majority of the cattle sold during that period were store cattle. 

“A lot of that early autumn, they had no where to go so they were basically all store stock,” Mr Harris said. 

“Things got very tight, and they had to unload them so we saw a lot more come into the market. There certainly wasn’t any increase in fat stock.” 

Mr Harris said demand from mainland purchasers during the autumn period was very strong. 

“I’d say pretty much 50 to 60 per cent of the cattle at most of those big autumn sales went out of the state,” he said. 

“This is normally only 20 per cent so it will cut a lot of our numbers back later on.” 

Mr Harris said good demand for sheep through the saleyards had seen steady market conditions and consistent numbers. 

“The sheep job has been rea sonable so there were probably more opportunities in that market than anywhere else. 

“With sheep, Auctions Plus has really dropped off whereas with cattle it has gone the other way.”

Nutrien livestock agent Warren Johnston said the seasonal conditions were a key factor in the saleyard numbers boost. 

“Seasonal conditions definitely had an impact,” he said. 

“We’ve seen cattle coming from statewide, more through that autumn period and the saleyards were really the place to go to market weaner cattle.” 

He said bigger numbers at the regular store sales at the TLX had led to more consistent markets. 

Mr Johnston said a percent age of the cattle sold during autumn would usually have been kept and finished on farm. 

“Probably the season led a lot of people to the fact that they needed to sell prior to winter. 

“There weren’t a great range of options but we were getting phenomenal mainland support which led to the saleyards being the hot spot to take cattle.” 

He said store cattle numbers through the saleyards were currently still fairly high, which was good for buyer competition. 

“Numbers will definitely attract more competition from the mainland and even locally.” 

Mr Johnston said many areas of the state were becoming worryingly dry, and this would impact livestock markets.