Ballarat female cattle sale: Joined heifers hit $4660

A small but quality yarding sold to highs of $4660 for joined heifers and $5500 for cows and calves at Ballarat. Full details here.

What appeared to be a fluctuating market overall held firm with recent prices seen for females with the top end reaching $4660 at Ballarat today.

Around 1000 joined heifers, cows and cows and calves went under the hammer to kick off three weeks of selling at Ballarat.

The heifer and cow market topped at $4660 for two-and-a-half-year-old joined heifers sold by Wimmera Downs, while the cows and calves hit $5500 for 10x10 unjoined second calving Speckle Park cows and calves sold by Lake Goldsmith Pastoral Company.

“Every single one of the cattle here today was beautifully bred with most of them prepared for this sale,” TB White and Sons agent Tom Madden said.

“For the top end of those pregnant two-year-old you had to have upwards of $4000 but there was hardly a pregnant heifer under $3000,” Mr Madden said.

Some onlookers speculated that the prices fluctuated throughout the small yarding after falling off from the highs of the first run.

But Mr Madden said the price variation from the top to the bottom of the market was dependent on joining periods and age with more paid for the more mature females.

“There was definitely a premium for the tighter joining windows for a tighter calving window and there was also a noticeable price variation from the two-year-old to the two-and-a-half-year-old heifers,” Mr Madden said.

“I think the prices today have been pretty on par with other earlier sales in South Australia and New South Wales that gave us a good idea of where we were hoping to sit,” Mr Madden said.

The Wimmera Downs cattle were a highlight of the sale with a huge line of 173 joined Angus heifers which topped the market at $4660 for 21 joined Angus heifers.

Mark Henry of Wimmera Downs at Snake Valley said he was pleasantly surprised with the highs of the top end of the sale which exceeded his top-priced pen last year at $3750 by almost $1000.

“The prices just keep creeping up every year. When you’re buying you think is this going to hold but it’s going in the right direction,” Mr Henry said.

“It was a fantastic top end, we’ve seen previous sales top out at $4400 and I wasn’t expecting this kind of result,” AWN agent Ash Driscoll said.