Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

26 Jun 2026

Key points

A tightened yarding lifts indicators across cattle and sheep.
Queensland makes up 38% of the cattle yarding, with southern buyers competing further north.
The Mutton and Restocker Lamb Indicators both broke records this week.

Despite a full week of yardings across cattle, lamb and sheep, supply tightened from 24% to 28% as more rain came for large parts of the country. All sheep and cattle indicators lifted except for the Heavy Steer Indicator. The National Mutton Indicator and the National Restocker Lamb Indicator reached records this week at 914¢ and 1,242¢/kg cwt

Cattle market

The national cattle yarding dropped 24% this week to 60,548 head. Queensland again made up a large part of the offering at 38% of the yarding, continuing to supply southern demand.

The Restocker Yearling Steer Indicator had the biggest gain of the week at 5%, lifting to 553¢/kg liveweight (lwt) across an offering of 6,203 head, of which Queensland yards made up 78%. The best prices came from southern markets, with the 98 head offered at Carcoar making 620¢/kg lwt and the 529 head at Wagga making 596¢/kg lwt.

The Feeder Heifer Indicator lifted 4% to 496¢/kg lwt across an offering of 5,342 head. The supply for the category was more evenly spread across NSW and Queensland, though best prices again came from the south with Carcoar, Tamworth, Dubbo and Wagga all making above 520¢/kg lwt.

The Processor Cow Indicator remained stable, lifting 1% to 378¢/kg lwt across an offering of 8,737 head. Supply was again evenly spread. Roma and Wagga made up 11% of the offering; however, the average price at Roma was 355¢/kg lwt while Wagga made 404¢/kg lwt, a 14% premium for the south.

Sheep market

Both national lamb and sheep yardings fell 25% to 108,965 head and 28% to 40,022 head, respectively. Processor-focused lines continued to lead the bigger lifts and, against the tight yarding, the Mutton Indicator lifted 3% to 914¢/kg carcase weight (cwt) another record week. Wagga made up 23% of the mutton offering and averaged 978¢/kg cwt.

The Heavy Lamb Indicator lifted 4% to 1,151¢/kg cwt across an offering of 25,371 head. Wagga made up the biggest offering, contributing 40% of the total or 10,000 head.

The Restocker Lamb Indicator lifted 2% to 1,242¢/kg cwt across an offering of 18,926 head. The indicator reached its daily record on the 24^th of June at 1,278¢/kg cwt. Supply across NSW and Victoria was even. The biggest offering from a single yard came from Katanning, making up 21% of the total at 3,966 head, averaging 1,184¢/kg cwt, while the 16% of the contribution from Wagga made 1,310¢/kg lwt.

Slaughter

Week ending 19 June 2026

Cattle

Cattle slaughter lifted 6% on the previous week, affected by the public holiday. The female slaughter rate sat lower than previous weeks at 47%.

State-by-state cattle slaughter (YoY):

NSW: down 7% to 34,664 head
Queensland: up 6% to 83,046 head
SA: up 1% to 3,846
Tasmania: down 5% to 4,944 head
Victoria: down 3% to 25,660 head
WA: up 51% to 3,862 head.

Sheepmeat

National lamb slaughter lifted 19% on the previous week to 418,929 head while national sheep slaughter lifted 15% on the previous week to 74,331 head.

State-by-state lamb slaughter (YoY):

NSW: up 12% to 126,918 head
Queensland: down 27% to 1,050 head
SA: down 23% to 41,945 head
Tasmania: down 46% to 5,442 head
Victoria: down 6% to 196,453 head
WA: down 16% to 47,121 head.

Attribute content to: Alex Fry, MLA Market Information Analyst

Information is correct at time of publication on 26 June 2026.

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