Riverina agents say prices “are going to get interesting” as supply tightens

The lamb market is inching up on trade lambs, but agents are warning quality lambs will be hard to come by later in the season.

Picture: Zoe Phillips

The lamb market has opened this week on a higher note for trades, as buyers at Bendigo pushed prices up on trade and light lambs for MK orders, but export demand was patchy and the mutton market was weaker.

This comes as lamb pricing has trended slowly upwards across major sales in southern Australia since mid May.

At Bendigo on Monday, lambs to processors fetched 680 to 740c/kg carcass weight, spiking to 780c/kg for those weighing 24-27kg cwt in places, but buyers were less enthusiastic in the export run, and the mutton sale was cheaper the National Livestock Reporting Service found.

While lamb prices have generally moved higher in the past two weeks all eyes are on what the market does when suckers with good weight are “extremely hard to find” in coming months.

Selling agents at Wagga Wagga in NSW last week said the poor season in the south means “the supply of heavy lambs is going to run out”, pointing to hope for a more sustained lift in prices later into the winter or spring.

With big volumes coming through Wagga, NRLS reported price premiums were on offer for neat, shorn lambs, with prices quoted as $1-$4 higher on recent sales.

H Francis and Co agent Matt Hawker said the market was “very similar to last week, very buoyant with well presented, well finished lambs a touch dearer in spots”.

However, overall, he quoted the market as “either side of firm” with trade lambs in the mid 700c/kg and heavy lambs returned “just either side of 700c/kg”.

“The supply of heavy lambs is going to run out at some point, be that July, August or September and we won’t have the early suckers or weight here that we normally do, due to the season,” Mr Hawker said.

“Our suckers will be later, and they won’t have the killable weight they normally have,” he said. “There will be a pinch at some point.”

Riverina Livestock Agents’ director James Tierney said super heavy lambs fetched prices in the late 600s while “neat trades, 22kg, were up to 800c/kg”.

“Prices are starting to rally and the supply of good lambs are going to get harder to find,” he said. Buyers were also getting a bit less picky, he said.

“Suckers are going to be extremely hard to find with good weight; and generally there is going to be nowhere near the supply of better quality lambs compared to what there has been in the last couple of years,” Mr Tierney said.

“So things are going to get interesting,” he said.

TB White and Sons agent Xavier Bourke, Ballarat, said the lamb market was solid now but he expected a “spike in July to September when quality lambs will be hard to come by”.