Eastern states beef processing took further small step forward this past week rising 2.3 percent on recent the higher levels.
The increase, driven by rises in NSW (+6%) and Victoria (+4%), was offset slightly by a six percent slide in SA production to 4680 head.
The eastern states beef tally, which rose to 150,067, represented the first kill above 150,000 beef units since May 2016. It was also the second-largest kill for Victoria in two years and the largest in NSW since December 2015.
The lamb kill this past week eased by an average of two percent across the five eastern states. Again SA saw the largest fall in production, back 12 percent to 47,482 units, while the main lamb processing states of Victoria and NSW each dropped about 1000 units for the week.
The slaughter of mutton sheep was steady while the goat kill jumped massively, up 84pc, with the SA-kill four-fold higher while the Qld/NSW kill fell marginally short of doubling.