Lamb prices tumble $20-$40 earlier this week

The lamb market meltdown has left buyers unsure where their money is best spent as prices fall for another week.

Lamb prices fell another $20-$40 early this week as a backlog of old-season lambs coincide with a lift in sucker offerings.

Carcass price averages for old-season lambs were below 650c/kg carcass weight on Monday according to the National Livestock Reporting Service, mutton prices dropped again and the first consignments of new-season lambs also became caught up in the cheaper trend, quoted as $10 to $15 easier at Bendigo.

Picture: Zoe Phillips

“You wonder what is going to happen in the spring as more numbers appear as they have pulled the market back so much already,” Ellis Nuttall and Co auctioneer Rupert Fawcett Jnr from Bendigo said.

“They (processors) are getting old lambs pretty cheap now.”

The 15,505 crossbred lambs sold to processors in NLRS-recorded markets on Monday averaged $171 or 636c/kg while 2918 young lambs sold to processors averaged $180, or 743c/kg, down 54c/kg in a week.

It comes as another wave of old-season lambs hit the market after producers who had been waiting for prices to improve are forced to sell as stock start to cut teeth.

Heavy lambs numbers last week were 53 per cent higher than the same time a year ago while hogget yardings were up 51 per cent after many producers were caught-out as they waited in vain for the winter market to show a premium.

Bendigo Sheep and Lamb Sale. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Nutrien livestock agent, Mark Barton from Wagga Wagga, NSW, said it had been a tough run season and price-wise for producers who had speculated on heavy old lambs this winter.

“It got wet and cold, lambs didn’t do in the past 10 weeks, we’ve had to shear some twice and we’ve been copping it on price,” Mr Barton said.

“We will still have old-season lambs going out into September but teeth have become a real issue.”

Processor figures reflect the increased supplies, with more than 362,000 lambs killed in the second week of August, the second highest production week recorded this year.

The meltdown of the market is now threatening producer confidence on the eve of the big spring store sheep sales and the mass sell-off of suckers that will require restocking support.

Store lamb activity has been quiet this month, and Mr Fawcett said producers had become wary of the erratic sheepmeat market.

“The way the market has been people are unsure of what to buy and what is worth the money,” he said.

“Someone asked me what they should be paying for store lambs and I had to say that on the current market you wouldn’t want to be paying much more than $100.”