Lamb prices steady as market supply meets demand

The sheep market showed signs of easing down from its heady run of the past fortnight, with most saleyards reporting cheaper trends for heavy mutton earlier this week.

Numbers game: Lamb prices are being driven by strong supply in the south compared to smaller numbers up north.

LAMB prices are hovering between bigger supplies in the south, but limited numbers in the north.

The result has been another week of little price movement, with official data from the National Livestock Reporting Service showing must grades of lambs have fluctuated by less than 15c/kg carcass weight in the past month.

In carcass price terms, good slaughter lambs remain in a range of 750-780c/kg cwt on average, as reflected in the updated national results earlier this week of:

HEAVY lambs (22kg cwt plus) at 758c/kg cwt, for a change of just 1c on late last week.

TRADE lambs at 770c/kg, just 3c lower.

LIGHT lambs at 835c/kg, 8c easier.

In Victoria there was a shuffle of buyers as split sales are held at the Hamilton saleyards in the Western District, with lambs now being sold on Mondays and Wednesdays and sheep on Thursdays.

Numbers at Hamilton are just starting to build, with 10,000 lambs yarded last Wednesday. This number is expected to rise to 40,000 in the peak markets before Christmas.

Ballarat is also in the midst of its big spring yardings.

While this sell-off from the south would normally put pressure on the market, this year it has been negated by reduced lamb and sheep numbers in the north.

Due to a mix of the season, restocking demand and the focus on grain and hay production, lamb numbers have been tracking lower than normal across most of NSW in the past seven days.

There were 22,000 lambs at Wagga Wagga in the Riverina last week, with just 3000 at Griffith the following day.

Earlier this week just 6300 lambs were offered at Dubbo in NSW and 6900 at Corowa.

In dollar a head terms the heaviest sucker lambs have generally been making from $200 to $230, with only limited sales at higher levels.

There was less weight appearing at most saleyards, with fewer extra heavy suckers over 30kg cwt appearing.

The fresher conditioned tradeweight lambs sold from $175 to $195.

The National Livestock Reporting has noted how the lamb market is performing on quality, with premiums of about 20c/kg being recorded for the best young lambs over the plainer and drier types.

The quote out of Bendigo earlier this week was averages of 760-770c/kg for the best heavy and trade sucker lambs, and 730-750c/kg for plainer and drier types of the same weight.

Restocking demand has remained strong, with good young store lambs commanding from $130 to $160 to be at decent premiums to slaughter types on a carcass weight basis.

The sheep market showed signs of easing down from its heady run of the past fortnight, with most saleyards reporting cheaper trends for heavy mutton earlier this week.

But even with the correction, good sheep in both Victoria and NSW were still quoted between 620c and 680c/kg, tracking much higher than in 2019 when the calendar year average was 517c/kg.

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