With drier conditions predicted until the end of June, the Bureau of Meteorology revised short-term forecast spells more pain for our industry.
Large tracts of western Queensland and New South Wales have been gripped by dry conditions for many months, which has caused major destocking already.
Victoria’s conditions are following suit with prospects for improvement scarce.
East Gippsland, particularly east of Bairnsdale, has seen little rain in the past 12 months.
While most producers have looked after stock with supplementary feed, some producers were forced to agist stock out of the region and many have sold their calves early.
In the North East, producers have offloaded animals early, with a spike in throughput numbers evident during January to March, at saleyards.
However, East Gippsland appears to be bearing the brunt of the dry because most producers don't sell their annual drafts of young cattle until March and April. Unlike most other districts in the eastern seaboard, they are now only commencing a herd reduction.
Leading up to the Easter break, supply did lift marginally, but since then, supply has rocketed in some areas.
While markets remain steady in south and west Gippsland, Bairnsdale agents have traded over 16,000 head in the past six weeks.
Included in this has been breeding stock, as producers look to reduce expenses and avoiding stock from any suffering.
When looking toward the north and North East, this trend commenced quite a bit earlier.
Wagga Wagga's prime market, every Monday, is now, and for some time, been a ‘store’ market.
However, more recently the supply of cull cows and yearling heifers have dominated this market.
Supply at this market peaked at 6300 head two weeks ago but this was one of several that have been over 4500 head – and included 1200 to more than 1800 cows.
Dubbo agents penned over 7000 head the same week, Forbes market reached one of its largest yardings of 3000 head, and Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange at Carcoar, NSW, drew 11,000 head last week.
A sobering thought is that none of these figures reflect the extraordinary number of cattle being sold directly to processors.
An interesting comparison to all of this is the Western District, where most of this area remains very dry, and both physical and store markets are declining in number to small levels.
Devastated by fires back in March parts of the affected region added to a large selling of cattle.
For comparison, the Mortlake store cattle sale on March 8 saw 3000 cattle offered, including some severely affected by the very dry conditions.
Prime cattle markets at the same saleyard were over 1500 head, but just this week supply was back to less than 500 cattle.
Warrnambool, Camperdown and Colac markets have also been in decline, and while some of this was due to a destination shift to Mortlake, all markets are now quieter than normal.
Concerns right across the country now come from no rain. It’s now May, and any early frosts may stop any potential growth which is desperately needed before the depths of winter.
