Bendigo sheep sale: Record price set as producers celebrate stellar season
Is $400 the new baseline for first-cross ewes this season? Buyers at yesterday’s Bendigo sale accepted the new high price environment. Here are the sale results.
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FARMERS appear to have accepted the new higher price rates for young first-cross ewes, regularly paying over $400 at Bendigo yesterday and creating a new record of $446.
Unlike Corowa last month, there was no fanfare or price shock as buyers lined up and rolled with a market that produced consistent results of $400 and beyond for the majority of the shorn one and a half-year-olds.
It took at least 30 minutes of selling before a pen sold under this benchmark, and even then there was only a bid in it at $398.
For vendors, there was some relief the market had lived up to the heady expectations building around sheep sales this spring.
“It is every bit as good as we were hoping for or expecting – there is no disappointment at all,’’ said Ravenshoe Pastoral producer Bruce Bickford, who received the best presented pen award and a price of $435.
“I mean this is easily our best price ever by a long shot – it was $331 or something last year – so we are $100 per head up on that.’’
Overall, more than 30 lots sold above $400 to the newly claimed record of $446 for a pen of 150 bred by the Hay family of Kamarooka.
The ewes had an average liveweight of 73.6kg, and ticked all the boxes for buyers being mulesed and scanned empty.
They sold to Shepparton based prime lamb producer Rob Sands who said the market had run hotter than hoped.
“I thought bidding may have ran out at $420 or $430, but we’ve had these ewes before and it was the right number in the pen as well,’’ Mr Sands said.
“But this sale has been very, very good.’’
Price consistency was the highlight of the sale, with enough depth of buyer demand to prevent any obvious discounts or premiums based around factors such as mulesing.
The good season also meant the yarding presented exceptionally well, showing plenty of bloom and condition.
Gregor Knight, Golden Wattle at Quambatook, said the evenness of ewes this year had helped create a consistent market.
The Knights were one of the volume vendors, selling 480 grown one and a half-year-old ewes for results of $420, $432 and $412.
Aside from sheep quality, there appeared to be acceptance among the buying ranks that $400 was now the base value for a well bred replacement ewe.
TB White & Sons Ballarat livestock agent Phil McCunnie said farmers now had their heads around the cost of store sheep.
“I think people now have an understanding that you have got to pay that money to get sheep – it is just a fact of life,’’ Mr McCunnie said.
“But having said that, there is quite a few positives as well with sucker lambs selling better than many people had anticipated this spring and mutton still making exceptional money.’’
But buying is still challenging.
Mr McCunnie and client Mark Powell was walking away from their chosen pen of ewe lambs at Bendigo, before Mr Powell threw in one last bid over his shoulder.
It won him the pen of 172 ewe lambs bred by Peter Darker and family for $400 – a new
record for this category.
It was the only sale of ewe lambs at that level, with most of the lead runs from $330 to $380.
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