Rise in cattle numbers: warm weather heats up market

IT HAS been a pretty hot week by Tassie standards and in fact almost the whole of South Eastern Australia has sweltered. 

When this sort of weather pattern occurs we see an influx of livestock onto the market and in particular over the last couple of weeks the cattle numbers have risen sharply and prices have gone the other way. 

Interstate cattle prices have fallen 15-30c/kg liveweight over the last couple of weeks and this also applies to store cattle and feeder steers and heifers. 

On Monday at both Wagga and Mortlake there were big numbers and prices eased 20c 30c/kg with over 6,000 being yarded at Wagga and 3,080 at Mortlake. 

The cattle kill stats are interesting with the January slaughter figures tracking eight per cent higher than January 202. 

MLA is suggesting that because of seasonal conditions the supply levels are coming in earlier than usual. 

If you have a look at the main prime cattle markets covered by NLRS you find that most trade cattle are selling from 260c to 350c/kg while feeder steers (over 400 kg) at Wagga on Monday sat between 270c and 360c (av.331c). 

Locally at Powranna on Tues day we saw yearling steers make 270c to 326c and heifers 270c to 322c while grown steers and bullocks make 270c to 312c/kg live. 

Generally speaking inter state cow prices eased 10c to 20c/kg but at Powranna best heavy beef cows made 274c to 288c/kg which is not that much cheaper than Victorian prices. 

These prices mean that many heavy cows make $1,800 to $2,000/head and in some cases more. 

The main Victorian store sale of the past week was at Wangaratta where they held their premier weaner sale and they yarded 5,386 head with most steers averaging 365c while heifers 296c/kg. 

Some lighter calves worked out a bit dearer but agents said that the prices were only just better than last year with a big per centage heading in to NSW and Queensland. 

Looking forward to our weaner sales that start in a few weeks time.