Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

13 Mar 2026

Key points

Queensland rain and southern public holidays cause major sale disruptions.
Cattle and sheep prices rise despite contrasting supply pressures.
Slaughter trends diverge, with cattle lifting and lamb staying restricted.

Heavy rain across Queensland, combined with public holidays in Victoria, SA and Tasmania, resulted in several saleyard cancellations this week. Despite increased supply, the sheep market continued to lift across all indicators.

Cattle market

National cattle yardings dropped to 62,790 head this week – an 11.7% week-on-week (WoW) decrease. Rain across Queensland caused the cancellation of several sales, including Charters Towers, Gracemere and Blackall. Road impacts from the weather also contributed to lighter yardings at Roma (2,100 head yarded) and Dalby (2,490 head). Overall, Queensland yardings dropped 70% WoW to 6,311 head. The tighter supply supported price increases across all indicators except the Dairy Cow Indicator (-1.1%).

The National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) held steady at 479.7¢/kg liveweight (lwt) in a tighter market of 17,823 head (-24%).

The Feeder Heifer Indicator lifted to 441¢/kg lwt (+3%) against a tighter supply of 4,834 head (-24%). With multiple Queensland sales closed, NSW accounted for 74% of the category’s throughput.

Sheep market

Lamb supply increased 27% WoW, to 175,781 head, while sheep supply rose 22% to 80,122 head. Despite this lift in supply, demand strengthened with all prices across all indicators improving –rising 1% for mutton and 4% for light lamb. Restocker activity remained strong and largely unaffected by the 40% increase in supply, with the Restocker Lamb Indicator holding just below its record at 1,172¢/kg carcase weight (cwt).

The National Trade Lamb Indicator gained 26¢ to 1,163¢/kg cwt on a yarding of 35,698 head (+28%). The Wagga report noted strong competition among a small number of buyers, with some operating below usual levels.

The Mutton Indicator lifted 7¢ to 801¢/kg cwt across 52,756 head, sitting just shy of its weekly record of 810¢/kg cwt set in October last year.

Slaughter

Week ending 6 March 2026

Cattle

Cattle slaughter increased across all states, lifting national throughput to 154,298 head – up 16% year-on-year (YoY). WA had recorded a notable increase, influenced in part by the Labour Day public holiday in the previous week.

State-by-state cattle slaughter YoY:

NSW: up 3.6% to 36,707
Queensland: up 26.2% to 79,341
SA: up 3.5% to 3,872
Tasmania: up 4.1% to 5,170
Victoria: up 8.5% to 26,309
WA: up 63.1% to 2,899.

Sheepmeat

National lamb slaughter fell 5.2% WoW to 421,813 head (-14.6% YoY). National mutton slaughter declined 15.6% WoW to 122,977 (-40.2% YoY), with decreases across all states except WA, where the public holiday affected the previous week.

State-by-state lamb slaughter YoY:

NSW: steady at 120,314
Queensland: down 18% to 1,160
SA: down 23.6% to 44,733
Tasmania: down 37.1% to 6,568
Victoria: down 22.9% to 200,258
WA: up 9.7% to 48,780.

Attribute content to: Alex Fry, Market Information Analyst

Information is correct at time of publication on 13 March 2026

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