Lamb numbers decline as cold weather persists

A combination of wet seasonal conditions, a flock rebuild and already extraordinary prices which have forced stock online much earlier than usual are factors for the shortage.

It follows a report by Mecardo which revealed Victoria experienced its lowest weekly lamb slaughter last month since April, as agents warn the spring flush will take place later this year due to mild weather preventing stock from being slaughter ready.

As NSW continues to process more lambs than usual for this time of year, however, weekly slaughter rates are well down on historical levels in Victoria and South Australia, Mecardo said.

In Bendigo, lamb volumes remain down on year-ago levels largely due to widespread rain in the last four months.

"Normally at this time of year we would be yarding 30,000 lambs and at the moment we're only yarding about 18,000 but on Monday we yarded 11,000," Ellis Nuttall director Rupert Fawcett, Bendigo, said.

"It's all due to the wet season we had in July and August because the lambs haven't done as well as they normally do and are probably a month or so behind."

Mr Fawcett said graziers were desperately waiting on some spring sunshine to help "harden up the feed".

"Prices are very good and it's probably the best we've ever seen with export sucker lambs making over $300 a head on Monday," he said.

"The mutton side of things is still very good with sheep this week making up to $270 and that really shows there's not many older sheep around at the moment and they're in short supply."

Exporters are among those struggling to secure volumes of heavy lambs, mainly because many were sold off as trades, while fewer processors were active at Bendigo due to the coronavirus.

It comes as Victoria had its highest daily figure of coronavirus cases this week.

At Ballarat on Tuesday, just 8000 lambs and 5000 sheep were yarded as TB White & Sons director Gerard White, Ballarat, noted supplies were three to four weeks behind compared to previous years.

"It'll be a month until we start to see any proper numbers start to trickle through because feed is a bit soft and that's due to the wet season we've had so we really need some sun," Mr White said.

"Major buyers are still attending the sale, 99 per cent of them anyway, and buying the top-end of the lambs and restockers are very active on the well-bred lighter lambs."