Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

Cattle

Rainfall continues to drive market dynamics and has supported improved prices across most categories this week. National yardings fell by 38% or 16,600 head week-on-week.

For the second week in a row, the Dairy Cow indicator was the week’s top performer, lifting 16¢ to end the week at 184¢/kg liveweight (lwt).

Despite supply tightening, restocker yearling steer prices fell 9.5¢ or 3% to end the week at 325¢/kg lwt. As MLA’s Market Information team have highlighted for some time, continued high supplies of yearling steers on-farm is negating the need for restocker buyers to compete in the market, which in turn is softening demand and therefore prices, despite tighter supply.

Prices for both the Processor Cow and Heavy Steer improved 9¢ and 10¢ respectively to end the week at 294¢ and 211¢/kg lwt.

Tighter supply of finished-weight stock will have assisted price performance, but continued processor competition in the market demonstrates their capacity to process these animals.

Sheep

The positive movements in the cattle market extended to the sheep and lamb markets following a few weeks of challenging selling conditions.

Light and Restocker lamb prices were this week’s best performers, lifting across the country by 55¢/kg cwt each.

The recovery in these lighter articles indicates buyers are chasing lambs to trade, following a generally favourable June rainfall period. Pasture availability and on-farm grain storages are plentiful, allowing this opportunistic buying to occur.

Mutton was the lowest performer this week, although the indicator still lifted 15¢ to end the week at 332¢/kg cwt. As this article indicates, Merinos remain the dominant breed of ewe in Australia and dominate the Mutton indicator throughput, accounting for 62% of the total yarding.

Slaughter

Cattle slaughter remained firm week-on-week at 123,325 head. The highlight was NSW cattle slaughter, which reached its highest level since the first week of March 2020.

National lamb slaughter at 437,749 head reached its second highest volume since the first week of May 2019. This was only just behind the volume recorded in the last week of May 2023.

Victorian lamb slaughter volumes reached their highest levels in more than five years (since the first week of June 2018).

National mutton slaughter compared to the corresponding weeks of 2022 and 2021 is currently operating significantly higher. Previous years’ performance indicates a strong uptick in mutton slaughter can be expected from late July onwards.

New indicator

In the coming months, MLA’s Market Information and National Livestock Reporting System (NLRS) teams will release a seasonal indicator specifically for new season/young lambs, as a direct result of industry consultation in 2022.

The indicator will be reported daily in ¢/kg carcase weight and run from September to early February every year before ceasing when supply of new season lambs tightens significantly.

Markets

• CQLX Gracemere, Casino, Emerald and Blackall cattle markets did not run this week.
• Griffith sheep and lamb market did not run this week.
• Bairnsdale store cattle market will not be reported this week.
• Bairnsdale prime cattle market will now operate every second Thursday, beginning 6 July.
• Swan Hill Agents Association have notified MLA they no longer require the National Livestock Reporting Service to report the Swan Hill sheep and cattle markets on an alternating fortnightly basis. Ceased reporting of this market begins this week. For any further information, please email nlrs@mla.com.au