Prices reward early new lambs

It is that time of the year when we start to see some new season’s lambs (known as suckers in the old language!) coming onto the market in Tasmania. 

This week at Powranna we saw more than 100 new lambs with most having plenty of weight.

They sold very well with the heavy lambs making $224 to $249, trade $216 to $220 and light trade $120 to $164 per head. There also some new season’s lambs being offered on the screen with restockers very keen to buy early.

We say this almost every year and here we go again, it is a good time of the year to sit down with your agent and consider taking advantage of the very good early prices, because historically they don’t last. 

I have had heard of producers keeping the top third and the bottom third and selling the middle third with many of these well-bred store lambs making $110 to $140 per head and a little more in places. 

Don’t count on me, call your agent and have a look at the options because there is not just a restocking market, there is also the MK lamb market. 

One thing we can be sure of is that if no more rain arrives we will certainly see an influx of lambs onto the market.

Interstate lamb prices have come back a shade this week but most are averaging 780c/kg to 820c/kg carcass weight and for the very best still around 850c/kg, particularly in the bigger NSW markets. 

At Ballarat in Victoria on Tuesday lamb numbers jumped up 6600 to 25,030 head with new season’s lambs making up the biggest percentage. 

The heavy lambs were quoted at $253 to $276, heavy trade (22kg to 26kg) $202 to $254 and trade (18kg to 22kg) $153 to $206.

MK lambs made $98 to $159 with restockers competing for these lambs as well. 

The word is that some meat companies have upped their mutton slaughter as the price gap between lambs and mutton has stretched and an extra mutton kill is seen as more profitable. 

Most interstate mutton sales this week and late last were $10 to $20 per head dearer with plenty of sheep being quoted between 300c/kg and 350c/kg carcass weight, which is staring to push many more sheep over the $100 mark. 

Interesting to note that the national slaughter figures for the week ending October 18 show 620,000 sheep and lambs being processed in total, with the breakdown being 404,000 lambs (up 30,000 on the previous week) while mutton surged to 216,555 to reach the fifth largest weekly number since 2019. 

For producers these figures are encouraging as the more is processed now the less will be in the market come the late summer and early autumn.