Lamb slide appears to have bottomed out

Positive signs out of NSW show that rain-disrupted supplies helped put momentum back into the market.

Top heavy: A pen is sold at Swan Hill last week, where a lighter, second draft of suckers outsold the tops.

THE good news this week for the battered lamb market is that price falls appear to have slowed, with signs the market may be stabilising.

Earlier this week the major saleyard indicators showed minor corrections from late last week, ending the run of significant price drops.

And there were positive signs out of NSW, where rain-disrupted supplies helped put momentum back into the market.

At Dubbo in central NSW earlier this week, prices for good tradeweight lambs were quoted $15 to $25 a head dearer as numbers were cut to 12,000, down 10,000 on the big yarding of a week earlier.

The NLRS quoted quality suckers between 800c and 850c/kg carcass weight at Dubbo, with 24kg lambs making up to $194 to be well ahead of the rates recorded at markets further south in the past week.

A breakdown of saleyard data shows price rates for lamb and mutton are lagging behind in Victoria as the state battles rising COVID-19 cases.

Two major abattoirs — JBS Australia at Brooklyn and Australian Lamb Company at Colac — remained closed due to infections among abattoir workers, cancelling regular buying orders that would normally support southern sales.

These are the latest price indicators comparing NSW with Victoria:

OLD-SEASON trade lambs 764c/kg in NSW, 690c/kg carcass weight in Victoria.

HEAVY lambs (22kg-plus) 687c/kg in NSW, 651c/kg in

Victoria.

MERINO lambs 703c/kg in NSW; 629c/kg in Victoria.

MUTTON 597c/kg in NSW, 577c/kg in Victoria.

Buying fields in Victoria have generally been missing between four and six regular orders in the past week, which depressed the market despite unusually low numbers being offered.

There was another extremely small yarding of 3200 lambs at Bendigo earlier this week. While there were some price improvements for the best tradeweight lambs, prices for the bulk of the very mixed offering were only similar to even cheaper than a week earlier.

Extra-heavy lambs remain the most problematic to sell amid reduced export competition.

At Bendigo big lambs weighing more than 30kg carcass sold from $180 to $200, with agents passing some pens in. The NLRS quoted an average of 580c/kg for extra-heavy lambs.

New-season lambs are now appearing at most centres, and they are attracting the best carcass money of more than 700c/kg.

In dollar-a-head terms they have been selling in a tight range of $165 to $185, regardless of weight.

There was an instance in Swan Hill last week where the second draft of suckers made more, at $178, compared with the tops at $170, which were a couple of kilos heavier.

The sweet spot for lamb at present is 20-24kg carcass weight, with stock this size often making similar dollar-a-head money to heavier types.

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