Sheep and lamb prices continue to lift

Lamb and mutton prices have continued to strengthen heading into winter, despite high saleyard throughput.

Prices

National saleyard indicators have continued to rise this week, with all categories showing increases on week-ago levels. The national restocker lamb indicator on Tuesday was 746¢/kg carcase weight (cwt), 27¢ above week ago levels. The national trade lamb and heavy lamb indicator were 750¢/kg and 742¢/kg cwt respectively, both up from last week.

The stand out for all categories, is how high prices are compared to year-ago levels. Restocker lambs are up 168¢ year-on-year, while trade and heavy lambs are both 163¢ above year-ago levels. While prices generally see an increase during the winter months as the market transitions into the new season, this year prices have begun increasing much earlier.

Mutton prices have remained very strong over the last week despite not quite hitting the heights seen last Tuesday. Since surpassing the previous high for the national mutton indicator last Tuesday when it reached 540¢/kg cwt, prices eased slightly to average 528¢/kg cwt this week.

Supply

There is a relatively high prevalence of heavy and extra heavy lambs (22.1kg cwt and above) entering saleyards, as the old season lambs come to market. Last week 39% of lambs were heavy compared to 31% of lambs in the trade weight category (18.1-22kg cwt) and 30% were in the restocker category (0-18kg cwt).

Overall, yardings have remained high either side of the Easter and ANZAC day holidays, with yardings last week 42% above the weekly average so far in 2019.