Bendigo Livestock Exchange cattle sale day to move to Mondays

The sale will move from a Tuesday to a Monday from August 5, ending a 158 year tradition.

Manager Andrew McCulloch said numbers at the cattle sale had declined significantly recently.

In "the good old days" the exchange might have yarded 500 head of cattle, the exchange now averaged 200. In recent times this had dropped lower, to 130 or below.

Mr McCulloch said investigations suggested there were still plenty of cattle in the Bendigo region, but that farmers were taking this stock to regions with stronger buying markets on a Tuesday, such as Shepparton.

By moving the sale's day to a Monday the exchange hoped to tap into the strong buying group present then for the prime lamb sales.

"We've got really strong competition form the sheep processors that attended, and a number of those processors are both sheep and cattle processors as well," Mr McCulloch said.

"When the demand is high we get farmers shipping sheep in from all across the southern region of the country in the knowledge that Bendigo has a really strong buying group present each week.

"We believe that by resetting this to a Monday, and having the buying group already there for the sheep, we can drive that demand, get it up and make it worthwhile for local producers to not have to stress about shipping their cattle to Shepparton or other markets."

Mr McCulloch said saleyards had once been an integral part of the supply chain, but were experiencing more and more competition from different areas, such as online sale yards.

He said this meant saleyards had to assess the traditional sale day process of lamb sales on a Monday, cattle sales on a Tuesday and pig sales on a Wednesday..

Historically Bendigo has conducted its prime lamb sales on a Monday morning and its prime cattle sales on a Tuesday morning.

Mr McCulloch said moving the cattle sale to Monday would increase demand from a larger, diverse buying group, and help the farmers get a fair price for their livestock.

"It is also a highly attractive prospect for buyers and farmers to attend an additional sale in the same location on the same day knowing that they have the transport capacity to accommodate both sheep and cattle so it could potentially keep travel costs down for all involved," he said.

Livestock Exchange's Advisory Stakeholder Group chair Councillor James Williams said the change was made after extensive consultation with group members.

Mr Williams said the sale days had been consolidated because the Monday prime lamb sale was among the biggest in the country, attracting farmers from NSW and South Australia.

He said the aim of moving the cattle sale day was a bid to tap into a significant and lucrative buying market at these Monday sales.

Many buyers at the Monday lamb sales were also beef processors and farmers with mixed stock, but these groups were not represented at Tuesday cattle sales, Mr Williams said.

More than one million sheep and lambs were sold at the Bendigo Livestock Exchange in 2017/18, and 8824 in cattle sales.

The prime cattle sales will be moved to a Monday on a three month trial basis.

The cattle sale will start at 8.30am and finish at 9am. The prime lamb sale will still begin at 9.30am.

Sales will be conducted on Monday alone from August 5.