Store and prime cattle prices surge in the spring

The wet spring is encouraging cattle producers to fill their paddocks and prices are surging at store and prime sales.

Cattle producers are defying difficult seasonal conditions by stocking up on numbers as bumper spring rain drives confidence.

Store and prime markets are being bombarded with buyers scrambling to replace numbers as they offload finished stock through spring.

Rain may be depleting offerings due to logistics, but it is doing little to dampen enthusiasm.

Wodonga’s market of 1200 cattle last week attracted buyers from as far away as Carcoar, NSW, and Corcoran Parker director Justin Keane said there was a disproportionate crowd given the small offering.

“People are prepared to go anywhere where there is a sale now to get cattle,” Mr Keane said.

At last week’s Wodonga sale, 199kg Angus steers made 879c/kg but their younger brothers, which had an estimated weight of 130-140kg sold for $1560, or more than 1100c/kg.

“The cents-per-kilogram is irrelevant in these kinds of cases as buyers are thinking about how much they are spending on a dollar-per-head basis but they will be planning on keeping those kinds of cattle through this spring to the next,” Mr Keane said.

Warrnambool Stock Agents Association president Kieran Johnston said the centre’s offering of 1700 cattle last week attracted buyers from a big spread, including the flood-hit area of Echuca.

“There are a lot of people at markets because they want stock – grass is growing and they want numbers,” Mr Johnston said.

“The widespread rain means we are all going to have a great spring and buyers are heading to markets whether they are store or prime sales to get numbers.”

Restockers targeting prime sales in an attempt to restock paddocks are pushing rates higher in these sales too.

A breakdown of the buying patterns shown in the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator last week in prime markets monitored by the National Livestock Reporting Service showed restockers paid 163c/kg to 188c/kg more than feeders and processors.

That trend continued on Monday when restockers paid an average of 1152c/kg carcass weight for young cattle compared to 939c/kg by processors and 989c/kg by feeders.

Episode 3 director Matt Dalgleish said persistent rain and flooding was “pretty problematic at present”.

But he said one silver lining was once the weather started to warm up and the pasture growth kicked in, there would be ample food on offer for cattle and sheep producers to take advantage of.

Mr Dalgleish said based on current cattle prices, there were profitable gross margins in buying cattle.

“But the numbers start to look a bit shaky if young stock are purchased too dearly or the finished market softens too much,” Mr Dalgleish said.