Why producers forked out nearly $4000 each for 1000 lambs

One of Australia’s leading sheep studs has recorded a whopping result at its production sale. Here are the prices you need to know.

Australia’s biggest ram sale has produced a multi-million-dollar result in southern NSW where more than 1000 rams have averaged $3883.

The Lambpro ram sale near Holbrook, NSW, grossed $3.9 million for vendor Tom Bull.

The average was back on last year, when Lambpro sold 1045 primeline maternal rams for an average of $4561 but Mr Bull said “it really needed to be”.

The standout trend was for marbling and rams that had high figures for intramuscular fat but solid figures in other traits such as fertility and milk.

”We had buyers from across many states and we also had key buyers like Thomas Foods International, which were buying rams, and that is good to see,” Mr Bull said.

”It takes seven years to change the marbling in your flock and there was a definite trend here today that if a ram had good marbling and the rest of the figures were right, then they went hard on them.”

Mr Bull, who spoke on The Australian Ag Podcast recently about worldwide trends for lamb, said while the first 400 rams averaged more than $6000, there was still competition at the end of the massive draft, and many rams sold for $1000.

”We have a well educated group of buyers who know what they want,” Mr Bull said.

What makes today’s sale result even more remarkable is the rams offered were 2022-drop, and born in May/June this year, making some of them just four months old.