GRASS-fever was in the air and the key growing ingredient evident underfoot at Euroa store market last Friday where buyers tread carefully through sticky mud and stepped over puddles as they made purchases at the Angus female feature sale.
Repeatedly buyers told Stock & Land they were looking to restock and snare a few extra mouths to eat the flush of green grass.
Good demand from across the state pushed prices to better than expected levels; the situation perhaps best explained by Hugh Homewood, Homewood: “a farmer with grass in paddock has dollars in pocket”.
Mr Homewood snared the top pen of joined heifers – 10 Angus sold by Merridale Angus, Tennyson, November-December 2007 drop, AI to Grand Ridge Direction – at $1060.
Ideal heifers to breed from according to Mr Homewood, he said he had been looking for a long-term investment and would hopefully get about eight calves from the breeders.
Vendor Peter Collins said the situation was not so bright at home and that he would probably off-load more heifers at a later date.
Volume vendors Mark and Louise Calvert-Jones, Tonga Station, Mansfield, sold a draft of 66 joined heifers at an average of $847, with 121 joined cows to $940, average $851.50, all Te Mania blood.
Cows and calves hit their straps early with the first pen leading the sales at a rate of $1250 while heifers reached $515.
* Full report, Stock & Land, December 17.
