A good crowd of buyers headed to the Western Victoria Livestock Exchange at Mortlake for the June store sale on Thursday, where agents yarded 5678 cattle.
There was great interest from local, interstate and feedlot buyers due to the large yarding, as WVLX reverts to monthly sales over winter.
The quality of grown steers declined compared to recent sales, agents said, but bidders were buoyed by well-presented lighter cattle which grabbed the best prices of the day.
Southern Grampians Livestock stock agent Glenn Judd said despite the drop in quality in the grown steers, what was offered was still very strong.
"Any little pens of those grown steers were a bit off, or if they had too much weight, they came back down in their market price," he said.
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However, Mr Judd said despite that, other types of cattle still received strong interest from the buying gallery.
"Regarding the weaner cattle, we saw anything with bigger lines, like 15 or more, selling very well up to 800 cents a kilogram comfortably," he said.
"When we got down to the smaller groups, they were in around the 600c/kg range, but the majority of the lines of calves were very good too."
A highlight of the sale was a run of about 800 cattle from vendor Moyne Falls, Macarthur, which had been a good draw card for many buyers.
The majority of their pens of Angus weaner steers had an average weight of 200 kilograms or higher, with one pen of 18 steers, 279kg, fetching $2030 a head or 728c/kg.
Mr Judd said the good-sized yarding was normal for this time of year, and with Mortlake reverting to a monthly store sale, agents expected the large yardings would continue in the coming sales.
He said he'd expect the yarding would be "probably be another 5000 in July" and continual large yardings would be "a good indication of a healthy market," attracting more buyers.
The sale also featured a charity sale auction of an Angus steer weighing 570kg which sold for $5000.
Proceeds from the sale went to the South West Regional Cancer Centre, Warrnambool.
Amy Misfud, Warrnambool, who was representing the vendor of the steer, said she wanted to make the charity auction a regular occurrence at Mortlake.
"The South West Regional Cancer Centre has helped a family member who has cancer, so we thought that we would do something really nice for them," Ms Misfud said.
"They have been really good for us, because if they weren't in Warrnambool we would have to get travel to get treatment in either Ballarat or Melbourne.
"Hopefully the money we raise today will help someone else too who may be facing the same situation."
Other feature sale included vendor Ellimatta Partnership, Willatook, which sold a pen of 31 Angus steers, 303kg, for 710c/kg or $2154.
The pick of the weaner steers included a pen of 18 from Forward Pastoral, 346kg, which sold for 670c/kg or $2322, and another pen of 23, 313kg, sold for 710c/kg or $2227.
R Kelly sold five Angus weaner steers, 377kg, for 650c/kg or $2450.
JS & SJ Taylor sold 13 Angus weaner steers, 229kg, for 800c/kg or $1830.
D Picken sold 14 Angus weaner steers, 331kg, for 658c/kg or $2183.
ML & KE Ryan sold 59 Angus grown steers, 541kg, for 558c/kg or $3019.
PR & MA Gristede sold 22 Angus grown steers, 467kg, for 610c/kg or $2850.
G Townsend sold seven Hereford cows with 11 calves at foot for $2750, and 10 Angus cows with 11 calves at foot for $2600.
