West Wimmera agencies, DMD of Nhill and Westech Ag of Kaniva held the annual Nhill/Kaniva off-shears sale held at Nhill on Friday October 12th.
A yarding of 7500 predominantly local breeder sheep was offered and sold to a good field of buyers mainly within a 100 kilometers radius of the West Wimmera saleyards.
WesTech Ag principal, Stewart Kyle noted that young ewes sold firm to a top of $202 with the majority of the young ewe pens making $196 to $200.
Mature age ewes were sold $5-$6 a head cheaper, with classed breeding ewes holding fully firm rates while breeding ewes with lambs at foot were sold $4 - $5 dearer.
DMD Nhill principal, Andrew McIllree said best lines of quality ewes sold well as was expected while the plainer conditioned ewes, as has been the case for much of the spring, were tougher to clear but all were sold.
“As far as our wether lambs were concerned, we thought we had a cracking sale” Mr McIllree said.
“Two of our vendor lots – both shorn- were sold to $116 a head and all were bought for the stubbles”.
Quotes from the 1.5 year-old young ewe section included:
CA & JM Smith – 30 Merino ewes, September shorn, Gunallo-blood sold at $202
SH, AF, AM & RA Clark – 135 Merino ewes, July shorn, Hilton Heath-blood sold at $200
GR, RL & BR Launer – 158 Merino ewes September shorn, Baton Hill-blood, $198
Sherwood – 168 Merino ewes, September shorn, East Bungaree-blood, $198
AS & MK Cook – 130 Merino ewes, September shorn, Hilton Heath-blood, $196
Classed Breeding Ewes
D & C Clark – 226 Merino ewes, 3.5 years, August shorn, Flairdale-blood, $178
Nariel – 180 Merino ewes, 4.4 years, Narial-blood, $162
W & L Hawker – 212 Merino ewes, 4.5 years, Hamilton Run-blood, $158
Marra Farms – 213 Merino ewes, 5.5 years, September shorn, Gunallo-blood, $148
Wether Lambs
CA & JM Smith – 358 Merino wethers, September shorn, Gunallo-blood, $116
SH, AF, AM & RA Clark - 316 Merino wethers, Hilton Heath-blood, $116
AS & MK Cook – 275 Merino wethers, September shorn, Hilton Heath-blood, $109
Other Sales of Note were
180 Merino Ewes, 3, 4 and 5 years, March Shn with 105% White Suffolk lambs at foot, $235 and 206 unshorn Merino/Dohne-cross ewe lambs, $109
Buyers came from local areas Horsham, Warracknabeal, Bordertown with Southern Australia Livestock (SAL) Bordertown, SA being a prominent buyer in the mature ewes along with interests from Rainbow in the northern Mallee of Victoria.
EID scanning took place for the first time at Nhill and ran very smoothly with the help of Marcus Pollock from Agrinous, Mr Kyle said.