Weekly sheep and cattle market wrap
16 September 2022
Key points:
- Lamb prices strengthen week-on-week with improving quality demanding higher prices.
- Weekly new season lamb yardings 17% lower than five-year average.
- Medium cow prices strengthen on strong processor demand.
Lambs
The lamb market performance this week reflected improving quality driven by the increase in new season lamb numbers, with numbers rising 38% and the national heavy lamb pricing lifting 7c/kg cwt week on week.
Evidently, with increasing numbers of new season lambs, slaughter volumes remain robust, although softening slightly from significant highs over the past 4 weeks, to record 386,000 head for the week.
New season lamb volumes and the strong slaughter volumes indicate significant numbers of lambs are continuing to be purchased out of the paddock and sold direct to the processor.
New season lambs continue to operate at a premium historically. The weekly average is 11% or $19 higher than the 5 year average at $191/head.
Cattle supply
National cattle supply remained tight this week and operated 23% or 8,261 head below the weekly average for 2022.
Queensland recorded one of its smallest weekly volumes in a full selling week for the year, yarding 8,969 head. This was 41% below the 2022 weekly average and 8,380 head lower than the corresponding week in 2021.
Saleyard supply in WA continues to be restricted, with this week’s yardings operating 20% below the 2022 weekly average. Evidently, restocking intentions following a generally strong season across the state is driving tighter supply, although yardings have increased in recent weeks as spring develops.
In the cattle market this week, most categories were firm this week with marginal changes. Robust feedlot demand from NSW provided buoyancy to the market and also provided insights to the feedlot landscape across the eastern seaboard at present.
Feedlot landscape
The NSW feeder price has risen 19c over the past four weeks to operate at 539¢/kg lwt. This is a 5% premium to the national price of 515¢ and a 62¢ or 13% premium to Queensland’s price of 477¢/kg lwt.
Price performance relative to supply in NSW shows feedlot demand is significantly stronger in NSW than Queensland. This indicates pen space in the state is more widely available than Queensland and correlates with the data in the June quarter Lot feeding brief, which showed utilisation rates for NSW remained firm quarter-on-quarter at 79%.
Tamworth Store Report
The National Livestock Reporting Service has commenced reporting on the fortnightly Tamworth store sale. To view the report, click here.
The sale will next be reported on Friday 23 September.
Saleyard and indicator reporting next week
Due to the national public holiday on Thursday 22 September for the mourning of Queen Elizabeth II, the NLRS will not report on any sale due to operate on this day. Victoria will hold an additional public holiday on Friday 23 September.
As a result, the saleyards and indicators will not be reported on Thursday. With the expectation that some sales will not occur, volatility in the prices and indicator performances may result.
