Lamb stabilises, but sheep market starts to show the strain

While lamb prices begin to stabilise, the sheep market has started to crumble under the pressure of building spring numbers as ewes are sold off-shears and post-lamb weaning.

On the rise: Early bidding at Bendigo pushed lamb prices up to $15 higher at, but demand then slowed to take gains to between $5 and $10. Picture: ZOE PHILLIPS

THE lamb market stabilised in the past week with only minor price fluctuations in the auction system, a welcome change to the falling trend evident in late winter.

However, the sheep market has started to crumble under the pressure of building spring numbers as ewes are sold off- shears and post-lamb weaning.

Prices of $155 to $180 were consistently recorded for good medium and heavy tradeweight sucker lambs in the past seven days, with the best ideally sized domestic lambs managing to push over the 700c/kg mark.

Extra heavy lambs have remained capped at about $200 for suckers that weigh about 30kg, the market top at Bendigo earlier this week.

At the close of selling on Monday night the heavy lamb indicator was at 646c/kg cwt, showing a price movement of just 5c in the past week.

The tradeweight lamb indicator was at 677c/kg for a variance of just 4c in the last seven days.

It comes as young lamb numbers continue to build, particularly in northern areas where the warm windy weather is quickly drying off native pastures.

There were 18,700 suckers yarded at Dubbo in NSW earlier this week, and a similar number at Bendigo on the same day.

Yet both sales were quoted as firm to dearer.

At Bendigo the National Livestock Reporting Service said the sale opened strongly, pushed along by two domestic buyers, and some sales spiked by up to $15.

However the market did flatten as it progressed for an overall gains of $5 to $10 across tradeweight categories.

Some buyers did suggest the strong outcome might have a short window, with young lambs yet to appear at southern markets such as Ballarat, Horsham and Hamilton.

“If you want good suckers out of Victoria, Bendigo is ­really the only sale to get ­decent numbers this week, but that will change in the next month,’’ one particular buyer suggested to The Weekly Times.

Working on depressed skin values of just $1 to $2, the majority of suckers to processors have been tracking between 660c-730c/kg in the past week.

Store buying activity is starting to appear, and there were agents from Horsham and Ballarat at Bendigo on Monday who paid from $130 to $146 for young lambs to turnout.

These were bigger than a traditional store lamb, estimated between 17-20kg.

Very few smaller lambs under 16kg are available.

The national price average for store lambs has rallied to 764c/kg to be at decent premiums to finished stock.

Meanwhile, the mutton market has worn some significant price correction of $10 to $20 in recent days amid bigger supplies and restricted export demand.

A lot of sheep evaluated by NLRS reporters have been working out between 460c/kg and 520c/kg.

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