Stock sales around the region
FEILDING PRIME STOCK SALE MONDAY JULY 3
This was another very large sheep yarding with many pens to sell and the sale took much longer than usual to complete.
Last week saw the highest prices paid for lambs so far this season, in spite of little movement in lamb schedules, and many of the main lamb buyers reported average buy-in levels last week that were quite high and not really sustainable.
Consequently, when they saw the size of the sale’s yarding approaching 6000 lambs, they viewed it as a chance to recoup.
No one should begrudge them that opportunity because, like the British and Irish Lion rugby supporters who were here watching the Feilding sale, these buyers take both the good days and the bad days in their stride and deserve a win every now and then.
The vendors on the sale day were punished but only in comparison to the previous week as prices by no means crashed as such but did ease more as the sale progressed.
All aspects of the sale prices were reduced.
The top price was $175, for 7 big lambs from PM Rowe, and cents/kg was down for both the very heavy male lambs and the preferred mediumweight lambs and by a similar proportion.
There were twice as many store lambs on offer this week and they also eased back on a cents/kg basis.
The store lamb numbers were higher than the prime sale can easily clear although many were forward store.
Ewe numbers jumped with scanning in full swing up in the hills.
But all the usual buyers were there or had made arrangements.
Ewe sale prices initially appeared to ease very slightly but ended up virtually steady.
One noticeable point regarding the ewe yarding was that the vast majority of the ewes were medium weight.
This reflected their hill country origin, with not so many heavyweight ewes available.
By contrast, the cattle sale continued to decline in terms of numbers offered with no heifers and only a couple each of steers and bulls.
The steers were dairy types and the sale price reflected that.
One Angus bull was too heavy and sold for $1222 ($1.30).
But the Charolais bull was in a better weight category and sold for $2285 ($2.75).
So the extra 110kg cost the vendor over $1000.
Cows eased slightly across the board with most being dairies and 1 Angus cow managed $1242 ($2.07) with little else over $2/kg although a couple of good Friesian cows sold for $1292 ($2.02).
Sheep (9,118): lambs (5,737); heavy prime (1,596), 50-65kg, $142.50-$175, $2.70-$2.85, ease; medium prime (2,926), 38-40kg, $114-$145, $2.80-$3.05, ease; store (1,215), 30-40kg, $80-$130, $2.60-$3.25, ease; ewes (2,918); good, heavy (334), 26-28kg, $118-$130, $4.50-$4.60, steady; medium (2,047), 21-25kg, $83-$115, $3.95-$4.60, steady; lighter (537), 16-20kg, $51-$77, $3.30-$3.85, steady; poor sorts, $41; 2ths (381), $64-$111; male sheep (82), $30-$93.
Cattle (62): steers (2), 445kg, $1219, $2.74; cows (58); good, heavy, 488-640kg, $941-$1292, $1.93-$2.07, slight ease; boners, 360-542kg, $612-$1046, $1.70-$1.92, slight ease; lesser sorts, 305kg, $430, $1.41; bulls (2), 830-940kg, $1222-$2285, $1.30-$2.75.