Weekly cattle and sheep market wrap

Restocker demand for lambs in SA strengthens

• Encouragingly, restocker buyers at South Australian saleyards this week have operated strongly on lambs, driving the state’s indicator price to 98c/kg cwt or 11% higher than week ago levels.
• Year-on-year, the restocker lamb price is operating at 106c or 12% better than 12 months ago to currently sit at 1,027c/kg cwt.
• Following a below average finish to 2021 – which saw a lack of available pasture in key sheep producing regions and a large uptick in turn-off for the state – a wet start to 2022 looks to have buoyed producer demand for restocker lambs. Similarly, their confidence in rebuilding flock numbers has grown in line with more abundant pasture.
• The performance of the SA flock plays a key role in the overall national flock’s performance, with SA the fourth largest sheep producing state in the country behind NSW, Victoria and WA.

Southern NSW restocker steers at a premium to NSW prices

• Saleyard demand for restocker steers in southern NSW* continues to remain strong, with the region’s restocker yearling steer price currently operating at an 11% or 72c/kg lwt premium to the NSW average price.
• This pricing demonstrates the continued confidence in cattle in the traditionally sheep dominant region of the state, as well as continued demand for steers to capitalise on pasture availability and trade off.

*Southern NSW saleyards for cattle include SELX Yass, Wagga Wagga and Moss Vale.

Dubbo feeder steers performing strongly

• Medium steers sold this week at the Dubbo sale for 532c to feeder buyers, outperforming the national medium steer indicator by 7% or 35c/kg lwt. · This result follows the result of the Lot feeding brief last week, which showed cattle on feed numbers in NSW rose 9% to drive overall national capacity to a new record.
• The Medium Steer indicator has recently been dominated by feeder buyers, accounting for 74% of the total yarding. Confidence in the feeder sector for NSW has been emulated in the premiums feeder buyers are paying for medium steers nationally compared to processors.