Drier weather and a public holiday backlog meant cattle yardings moved dramatically higher, with east coast yardings hitting a three-month high to record a 91 per cent increase on last week.
There were higher yardings across the board, but the biggest jumps were in Queensland and NSW, where cattle supply more than doubled. This didn’t tip the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator below 700¢ – it remains at 706¢/kg cwt, but was down 17¢ for the week.
In the past two weeks, heavy steer in NSW saleyards have lost 49¢ from an all-time high of 670¢/kg cwt to a three-month low of 621¢.
But saleyard prices are still well ahead of over the hooks quotes, with the NSW average at 584¢/kg cwt.
Feeder cattle prices largely avoided the drop seen in slaughter markets, with demand still strong.
