Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

Cattle market

The finished cattle market faced a downward trend this week; however, young cattle were the least impacted. The National Restocker Yearling Heifer Indicator and the National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) were the two least impacted indicators. The Restocker Heifer price eased just 4¢ to 262¢/kg liveweight (lwt), and the NYCI was down 3¢ to 326¢/kg lwt.

Yardings remained steady on last week, lifting only 10% to 61,862 despite the reintroduction of two sales. Rainfall across NSW and Queensland pushed down throughput across some regions. Processor demand seemed to diminish across multiple southern saleyards, while interest from export buyers lifted. Quality seemed to be more varied across the board, with a larger gap between lines.

Sheep market

Returning to normal programming, sheep and lamb yardings lifted 23% or 57,022 head to 308,239, in line with year-ago levels. Activation of the new season lamb market and a push for selling sheep into a ‘reasonable demand’ market saw lamb throughput lift 25% to 206,022, which is 8% above 2024 averages, and sheep yardings were up 18% to 102,217, which is 10% above 2024 averages.

Prices were once again varied, with market reports indicating that inconsistent quality caused a poorer market. A 20% lift in indicator throughput did not impact the National Trade Lamb Indicator, which lifted 3¢ to 797¢/kg carcase weight (cwt).

Heavy lambs were in little supply as some regions struggled to reach heavier weights. Yardings eased 17%, while prices tipped back 9¢ to 811 ¢/kg cwt.

Slaughter

Week ending 11 October 2024

Public holidays in Queensland, SA and NSW led to some irregular national slaughter figures for week ending 11 October.

Cattle slaughter

Cattle slaughter was varied across states due to the disruption in processing caused by public holidays in Queensland, SA and NSW. National cattle slaughter eased 12% (16,421) to 123,980 head, the smallest processing week since the ANZAC Day long weekend. Reductions between 15%–21% were seen across all public holiday-impacted states. Throughput in Queensland was down 10,959 to 63,748, NSW down 5,843 to 28,172, and SA down 692 to 2,626. Elevated throughput across other states supported the national figure. Tasmanian throughput lifted 1% (49) to 4,254, Victoria up 4% (844) to 22,226, and WA up 6% (180) to 2,999.

Sheep slaughter

Processors have continued to favour sheep over lambs, likely driven by the growing price gap between sheep and lamb, as well as the seasonal influx of sheep throughput. In WA more sheep were killed than lambs, which has happened less than 10 times in the past five years. Similarly in NSW, for the second week in a row, sheep slaughter tipped lamb slaughter for only the third time in the past five years.

National sheep slaughter eased 2% (4,485) to 205,723, making up over 36% of sheepmeat throughput. WA saw the largest spike in sheep throughput, lifting 18% for the state’s largest sheep throughput since October 2019.

Lamb slaughter eased across all states regardless of whether they were impacted by public holidays. National figures eased 8% to 372,756, the lowest week for lamb slaughter since July 2023 (excluding the Christmas shutdown). NSW throughput eased 19% to 58,794. While influenced by the short processing week, this is the lowest throughput since April 2014 (excluding Christmas shutdowns).

Attribute to: Erin Lukey, MLA Senior Market Information Analyst