The beginning of twice-monthly store sales at Western Victoria Livestock Exchange in Mortlake began strongly despite small yarding numbers mostly made up of crossbred and pens of cows and calves.
Agents yarded 980 cattle in a sale that had a very strong local interest.
Cattle were of mixed quality throughout the sale, with prices keeping generally firm for the most part.
Senior auctioneer at Charles Stewart, Jamie McConaughy said the day was special for buyers, agents and sellers, with a good result for all parties.
"We've identified during the week that it's going to be a crossbreed, females, and cow and calf kind of setup where possible," he said.
"There will be also some oversupply from the main middle of the month sale falling into today's sale... so it's it's all a little bit fresh and new again, even though we have been holding this [arrangement] to for quite some time but we're actually now enforcing more regulations."
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He said agents would have been happy with what sold, and while the first sale of the month probably had some work to compare with expected numbers and quality for the sale in the middle of the month, prices reflected keen competition, especially from local farmers.
"A lot of farms were here on a speculation on having plenty of feed-post Christmas," Mr McConaughy said.
"There were a few major processes including JBS, who was very prominent, with probably half a dozen processors in action, [and] operating on limited supply of what they can traditionally handle."
He said agents and WVLX were keen to create the first sale at the yards out of the month into something bigger than where it probably is but it'll "take a bit of juggling and enforcement from all agents."
In terms of prices, Mr McConaughy said prices were surprisingly dear, considering how much water that is still lying around from floods.
"Normally that would that would result in a decrease in price, but we haven't seen that here today, [also] when you consider the numbers that we're dealing with."
Nutrien Warrnambool auctioneer Josh McDonald agreed with that assessment, but said considering that "a fair few amount of cattle" will be drawn for a fortnight's store sale it was appropriate to split up the offering at the sale yards.
"There was some really good lines of straight bred cattle here, and you could even say it was a winter's yarding, [which] sounds silly considering it's in the middle of spring, but it's simply wet and cold at the moment in our area and I'm sure we're not alone."
Mr McDonald said there was probably no major northern influence at the sale, but the slack was picked up by locals and feedlotters.
"Pretty solid sale and I thought cows and calves did well despite them showing the effects of a pretty tough six month period," he said.
Lighter heifers also did well, nearly cracking an 800 cents a kilogram, while heavier heifers above 350kg regularly passed 600c/kg and a handful of weaner steers passed 650c/kg.
Grevon sold three pens of 39 cows and calves, all a mix of either pure Hereford, Black Baldy and Hereford/Angus-cross cattle for $3450.
Yera Estate sold 15 Angus/Hereford-cross cattle for $3025.
Miranee North sold 20 Angus steers, 473kg, for 566c/kg or $2677.
HR & BA Berach sold a pen of 13 Angus grown steers, 579kg, for 510c/kg or $2954 and another pen of 12 Angus grown steers, 540kg, for 536c/kg or $2894.
I & S Vagg sold 13 Charolais weaner steers, 347kg, for 590c/kg or $2049.
R & K Stanley sold 10 Angus heifers, 261kg, for 678c/kg or $1772.
K & J Ferrari sold 39 Angus weaner heifers, 214kg, for 790c/kg or $1686.
P & K Condliffe sold 25 Angus weaner steers, 327kg, for 535c/kg or $1750.
Huffadine Family Trust sold 27 Friesian steers, 246c/kg, for 410c/kg or $1010.
