A huge contingent of interstate buyers has dominated the opening market of the Tasmanian weaner selling season at Powranna on Thursday.
Claiming close to 60 percent of the entire offering the large mainland inquiry, which stretched from Bendigo in Victoria to as far north as Roma in Queensland, pushed prices to record Tasmanian levels in a sale that was held a month earlier than normal due to the extremely dry season on the island.
The sale included some lines of yearling steers. These made $1040 to a best of $1385 a head while the heaviest of the weaner steers, 280-330kg, made $815 to $1050 a head, averaging about 313 cents a kilogram over the day.
Lighter steers weighed at 200- 280kg made $720 to $970 or 355c/kg lwt while very light steers made $590 to $820 a head with some sales exceeding 450-cents liveweight.
The demand for heifers was also dominated by the mainland. Heavy heifers made $1,010 to $1,250 a head, medium weights, $845 to $960, light heifers $650 to $870 and very light heifers, $500 to $690 as most sales averaged 280- 315c/kg lwt.
The opening day of markets saw a combined tally of 3300 head offered, with agency firms, Roberts and Elders, each conducting sales in their respective selling facilities.