After three solid months of first-cross ewe selling, final sales were conducted last week with back-to-back markets held on Thursday and Friday at Ballarat and Kyneton.
While beef weaner sales will claim all of the media headlines this week it was interesting to note that these two particular late season markets combined for a total of about 37,000 head of 15-drop ewe maidens, ewe lambs and mature ewes were exchanged for an estimated $7.5 million.
While these two markets were somewhat chalk and cheese in their end results the selling season as a whole throughout, Victoria has been remarkably stable with the vast majority of 1.5 year-old sales sold in the $240- $290 a head price bracket.
While a large slice of the 2016-drop ewe lambs commanded prices from $170- $230, topping at $270.
Quite remarkably on seven occasions bidders crossed the $300 a head threshold in Victorian feature markets paying an eventual top of $312 at Benalla, $310 at Ballarat and $300 a head at Wycheproof.
It would be fairly easy to draft the conclusion that overall demand has exceeded the extremely tight supply that has followed two to three particularly dry and uncomfortable breeding seasons.
But it also highlights that with the return of a good season, where water and feed resources are now ample for the time being, that producers increasingly had regained the confidence in lamb, mutton and wool to consider reinvesting and ramping up production.