STARVED of recent store sheep buying opportunities, restockers set a cracking pace at the Wycheproof sheep sale Friday bidding the opening yard of 82 crossbred ewes and their 142 marked young lambs to a sale high of $276 a head.
The Elders Limited-conducted sale, which was the first held for two months at the state's only recognized store sheep selling centre, offered a depleted 3864 head yarding following the past 12 months of dry weather that has seen numbers plunge throughout the region.
But with a recent rain under their belt and optimistically hoping for more, buyers appeared keener interest to fill emptied paddocks compared to sales earlier in the year.
The market toppers were an August-shorn line of 2011-drop Border Leicester-Merino ewes that had 165 per cent of marked White Suffolk young lambs at foot.
These were sold by BJ&CM Rumbold of Birchip, while JE&BH Wright, Charlton, cleared two pens of July-shorn, 2011-drop BLM ewes at $186 and $187 that were each scanned 100pc in-lamb to White Suffolk rams and offered a high percentage of multiple births.
Other pens of scanned in-lamb (SIL) or depastured BLM ewes made from $125 for sound mouth types, to $170 a head for young 2014-drop ewe lambs.
A pen of off-shears Finn-Merino ewes, aged 2-5 years, depastured with Texel rams, made $110, while a line of large framed 2010-drop Dohne-Merino ewes, September-shorn and depastured to Poll Dorset rams, made $161.
Tim Patterson, Elders, said in spite of the recent rain most vendors remained committed sellers because paddock feed was still limited.
"A green tinge has shot," he said.
"The grasses are definitely out of the ground but with the weather being so cold of late growth is very slow.
"And following the rain we did ask our venders if they were still interested in selling and most said yes for this reason."
However a positive has emerged from the recent big dry.
"The joining season appears to have been very successful with very few ewes being scanning empty and a large percentage expecting multiple births," he said.
Two pens of 13-drop Merino ewes, Bella Lana blood and depastured to Bella Lana Merino rams remained unsold at the completion of the auction.
Offering an October-shorn fleece these failed to meet the expectations when bidding stalled at $120 a head on the top yard of 224, and $100 on the second pen of 214.
Other pens of Merino ewes depastured to terminal sires made $114-$132 while unjoined Merino ewes made $95-$134.
The best-priced of these young unjoined ewes was a fourth-generation line of Gudair vaccinated Moojepin-blood ewes that was off-shear in early June.
These were offered by the line's breeder, Kevin and Yvonne Sait, Narriewillock, near Charlton, with repeat buyer, Murray Stapleton, Kulwin Park, trucking the line of 400 to his Darraweit Guim grazing property, north of Melbourne.
