Both supply and quality improved at the fortnightly Leongatha store sale, last Thursday. Agents offered 1476 head, which included some good quality yearling steers and heifers, and a better selection of spring drop calves too.
After three weeks of reducing prices at physical sales, competition finally succumed to buyer pressure, influencing cheaper prices for most cattle.
There were isolated sales of well bred younger cattle that sold at equal rates, although most sales of yearling steers, and some younger ones were $30-$50 cheaper. Most other cattle were between $50&$100 per head cheaper, especially for dairy and crossbred steers.
Only one processor feedlot was operating, but combined with other buyers, these steers still sold well.
A few pens of yearling steers, weighing over 500 kilograms, and up to 638kgs, sold from $1600-$1745, with a single beast topping the sale at $1810. “Bentcorp”, Tyers, sold 12 Angus steers from $1640-$1745, and Hill End Farm, Loch, 5 Angus steers for $1710.
Younger yearling steers, 410-490kgs lwt, sold to better competition with many selling from $1350-$1680. The best of these was 57 Angus steers offered by Mount Angus Stud P/L, Trafalgar, which sold from from $1330, for steers under 400kgs, to $1680. Equaling 361-365c/kg lwt, prices for their top two pens was equal to the previous market two weeks ago.
Hengstberger & Lloyd, Fish Creek, sold 34 Angus steers from $1510-$1540, and MM Lawless, Driffield, 58 Angus steers from $1320-$1490. Their heaviest steers weighed just 413kgs lwt.
Away from the traditional British breeds, demand was weaker. Northside Past Co, sold 38 steers in total with their Angus steers selling to $1450. However their good quality Limousin cross steers sold for $1400, equaling only 315c/kg lwt.
Crossbred steers were equally affected by the lack of demand. A&A Lamb, Nambrok, sold Angus-Friesian bullocks, 624-638kgs, from $1320-$1630. This vendor also sold 37 good quality Friesian steers from $980-$1150, which equaled 215-229c/kg lwt.
Producers offering high quality spring drop steers, and displaying their breeding and veterinary treatments, sold very well. GI&CM Hosking, Woodside, sold 70 Angus steers, Leawood & Battersby blood, from $930-$1120.
J&S Burns, Tarwin Lower, sold 14 Red&Black Angus-Gelbvieh steers, 8 monhts, for $1030, and S&F Beckman, Glengarry, 19 Black Simmemtal-Angus steers for $1060. D Anderson, Madayla, sold 10 Hereford cross steers for $1050. All of these steers were in a range of 355-379c/kg lwt.
Of lighter weights again, were AS&PK Aitken, Korumburra, selling 16 Limousin steers from $900-$1110, and J&S Kelly, also of Korumburra, selling 45 Angus steers, Woodleigh & Fernleigh Angus bulls, from $940-$1010.
In a sale that offered more singular and small sale lots, the heifer sale sold reasonably well. Yearling heifers sold from $1170-$1340, mostly 311-340c/kg lwt. R&L Sutton, Glenarry, sold 39 Angus heifers from $1225-$1325, and Malanda Past Co, Stradbroke, 13 Angus heifers for $1340.
Robinson & Hasthorpe, Tanjil South, sold 4 yearling Charolais heifers for $1330, but they also sold 16 younger heifers for $1120, or 352c/kg lwt. R Hopkins, Yinnar, sold 21 Black Simmental heifers from $840-$1010, and GI&CM Hosking, 36 Angus heifers from $850-$970.
At the end of the sale was a very small, and very mixed selection of cows and calves, that sold from $1000-$1600.