Largest sheep sale in two decades

WARWICK selling agents yarded 3276 lambs and hoggets, and 1915 sheep at the weekly sale on January 24.

It was the largest Warwick Sheep Sale seen in recent years. Some said it was the biggest in two decades.

TopX Warwick stock agent George McVeigh said the market held up quite well considering the numbers.

“I think with the dry weather conditions people are offloading,” he said.

“The lambs that were showing the dry weather were a bit sticky.

“But any good quality lambs still sold well.”

Top lambs account DJ Day of Dee Jay, Goondiwindi, sold for $176.

Tara sheep farmer Charlie McKenzie made the trek to Warwick with 446 sheep to offload.

“You’re better off selling them than smelling them,” he said.

“It’s a management thing, if you don’t sell now and the rain doesn’t come, you’re buggered.

“No rain equals no feed and your sheep are going to get lighter, and you start to lose on your potential sale price.”

Mr McKenzie said he chose to sell now while live weights were still good.

“They’ll appeal to buyers at the moment, but that may not have been the case in a week or two. And that seems to be the general feeling in the market today – a lot of people would be thinking ‘Let’s sell before we go backwards’.

MARKET QUOTATIONS:

Crossbred lambs, 70.5kg, live weight, selling to $176.00.

Crossbred hoggets, 50kg, live weight, selling to $108.00.

Trade wethers, $10 selling to $138 or $4.20kg dress wgt.

Light wethers, $8 selling to $89 or $3.70kg dress wgt.

Heavy crossbred ewes $6 selling to $121 or $4.10kg dress wgt.

Light ewes $8 selling to $80 or $3.75kg dress wgt.