Female cattle shine at Wangaratta store sale
Prices for female cattle continue to rise, as seen at the latest Wangaratta feature sale. Here’s what happened.
YOUNG heifers regularly made more than 500c/kg at Wangaratta today as the buying momentum for young females continued to gather pace.
The feature all-heifer yarding sold to a top of $1965 for 20 yearling Angus calves bred by the Simpson family of Docker.
Winning the ribbon for the best-presented pen, they weighed 365kg to make 538c/kg on
a liveweight basis.
They sold to specialist pregnancy-tested in-calf producer Neville Watkins who sells a feature run of joined beef females at Wodonga each January.
It came after he was the losing bidder on some of the opening pens of older grown heifers, with more weight, which topped the market at $1980 for 20 Angus from K & B Simmonds that weighed 443kg.
“Prices are really up there now if you want the best quality, but we are traders and we are back in the game,’’ Mr Watkins said.
The sale had exceptional buying depth, with feedlot support, commission buyers filling interstate backgrounding orders and North East and Gippsland agents all trying to secure some stock.
The result was a market that stunned some onlookers who described it as an “enormous sale’’, while other more regular market attendees just put it down to another very dear store sale.
Regardless of breed, the majority of heifers tracked at more than 500c/kg liveweight. In dollars-a-head terms, the majority of sales ranged from $1500 to $1750.
Corcoran & Parker auctioneer Justin Keane said young female prices were now matching steer
prices, on in many cases, were outselling their brothers.
“There has been a sense for a few weeks that the good black heifers would overtake steers, and now I think we are there,’’ he said after coming down from the rail.
“This is the first market I’ve really seen it and heifer prices are right up there now as people look to the future and chase breeders.’’
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