HEAVIER, well-conditioned cattle were competitive at Leongatha's fortnightly store sale recently but a dearth of feed in the Gippsland area helped drag down prices of lighter cattle.
The sale-topping steers, 14 Angus consigned by D Bishoff, Nambrook, returned 168 cents a kilogram, while a pen of 12 Angus steers, sold by P Williams, Yinnar, sold at $840 or 160c/kg.
Selling agent Simon Henderson said prices for heavier cattle were on par with the sale two weeks ago, but lighter cattle had dropped about $30-40 a head.
"There were a lot of poorer to second-condition cattle sold," he said.
"We had an oversupply of the lesser end of the market which brought prices down."
One black baldy heifer, consigned by LP Crockett, Tarwin, made the top price of $400, while 11 Angus heifers from Dunorkney Nom, Woolamai, sold to $390.
Mr Henderson said despite the South Gippsland area receiving more than 100 millimetres of rainfall over the past two to three weeks, producers did not have enough feed to sustain their cattle.
"People need to sell because they haven't got much of a feed wedge going into winter," he said.
"There's also not a lot of confidence in the buying fraternity at the moment because they haven't got a lot of feed at home."
Six black baldy cows and calves, consigned by AW&BJ Buckland, Fish Creek, topped at $710, while three Hereford-Friesian cows and calves from WM&CM Braabe, Korumburra, sold to $670.
Ron Conway, from R&BA Con-way, recently sold a section of his Glengarry property and was forced to sell some of his cattle.
He sold 16 Hereford-Angus steers, 18-20 months, to $775, or 171c/kg, a pen of eight Angus steers at 164c/kg and eight Hereford steers, 14mth, to $640 and said prices were a little better than he expected.
"I usually fatten them up a bit more and sell them on around Christmas time," Mr Conway said.
He said the unusually dry spring and summer months combined with his recent land sale encouraged him to go into the market before winter hit and prices plummeted further.
"Spring and summer has been the real killer for us," he said. "With the ground going from saturated to rock hard we didn't have a lot of feed about to finish off the cattle."
Korumburra hobby farmer Andrew Siekman bought a pen of Angus weaner steers at $500, or 152c/kg, and said if buyers were prepared to sift through the poor-quality cattle, there were bargains to be had.
"The same cattle I bought would have been worth $900 last year and they'll be $100 a head dearer in July, so it was a good time to enter the market," he said.
He offloaded 50 adult cattle recently and had enough grass and feed reserves to fatten the steers up and sell them on.
Mirboo North farmer Brendan O'Loughlin got 168c/kg for his two pens of Angus weaner steers, which was 20c/kg less than last year and 50-60c/kg less than the year before.
"The extended dry has hurt a lot of producers," he said.
"Most are being forced to sell now because you risk running into the spring and losing more money than you can actually make."
