Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

07 Aug 2026

Key points

Some drying conditions in northern NSW and southern Queensland have started to impact prices.
Most indicators across cattle and sheep categories fell over the week, despite smaller yardings.
Mutton slaughter lifted 23% as some processors resume slaughter after scheduled maintenance periods.

Conditions have started to dry out across several key livestock regions over the past month following the mild winter, including south-west WA, northern NSW and southern Queensland. This has begun to influence prices, with the impact most evident in restocker categories for both cattle and sheep.

Cattle market

The national cattle yarding dropped 6% to 67,153 head. All indicators, except for the Dairy Cow Indicator, dropped over the week from 2% for the Feeder Steer Indicator to 10% for the Restocker Yearling Steer and Heifer Indicators.

The Restocker Yearling Steer Indicator sits at 466¢/kg liveweight (lwt), a 10% drop over the week and 17% drop over the last month. Across the 5,663 head offered, 4,761 or 84% came from Queensland. However, best prices continue to be made further south, with Wagga and Moss Vale both averaging 537¢/kg lwt across small offerings of 192 and 212 head respectively.

The Heavy Steer Indicator dropped 3.5% to 423¢/kg lwt across an offering of 2,110 head. The indicator has dropped 6.5% over the month. Roma and Blackall made up 37% and 29% of the total offering respectively.

Sheep market

The national lamb yarding dropped 15% over the week to 130,324 head, while the national sheep yarding lifted 14% to 58,021 head. All sheep indicators dropped over the week from 0.5% for the Heavy Lamb Indicator to 4% for the Restocker Lamb Indicator.

The Restocker Lamb Indicator fell 4% to 1,113¢/kg carcase weight (cwt) across an offering of 14,767 head. NSW made up 57% of the offering, followed by WA at 20% and Victoria at 15%, with best prices from Victoria at 1,150¢/kg cwt, followed by NSW at 1,141¢/kg and WA at 1,028¢/kg.

The National Trade Lamb Indicator (NTLI) fell 1.5% over the week to 1,161¢/kg cwt across an offering of 20,944 head. The NTLI now sits 5% below its year-ago level. Forbes made up 26% of the weekly offering and also made the best price at 1,225¢/kg cwt.

Slaughter

Week ending 31 July 2026

Cattle

National cattle slaughter numbers decreased 3% week-on-week (WoW) to 142,624 head. NSW had the biggest drop, falling 17% due to some processors entering short winter maintenance schedules.

State-by-state cattle slaughter (YoY):

NSW: down 24% to 27,571 head
Queensland: up 4% to 79,501 head
SA: up 2% to 3,892 head
Tasmania: down 20% to 3,815 head
Victoria: down 6% to 24,127 head
WA: up 12% to 3,718 head.

Sheepmeat

National lamb slaughter increased 3% over the week to 350,043 head, while mutton slaughter lifted 23% to 87,374 head. Mutton slaughter in NSW and Victoria drove the increase, lifting by 23% and 19% respectively as some processors resumed operations after maintenance periods.

State-by-state lamb slaughter (YoY):

NSW: up 11% to 121,794 head
Queensland: down 26% to 1,000 head
SA: up 11% to 37,654 head
Tasmania: up 5% to 5,587 head
Victoria: down 12% to 157,627 head
WA: down 5% to 26,381 head.

Attribute content to: Alex Fry, MLA Market Information Analyst

Information is correct at time of publication on 7 August 2026.

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