Ballarat CVLX store sale offer plenty of feature lines cattle throughout December store sale

Agents yarded just under 4000 for Ballarat's last store sale of the year, which was well attended from buyers from around the state.

Heifers were the most outstanding offering within the saleyard on the day with plenty pens of excellent quality on offer, with some prices for heifers surpassing steer counterparts at times.

"The standout today has certainly been the heifer portion, [and] a lot of those feature heifer calves were going back to repeat breeding competition," Elders Ballarat stock agent Nick Gray said.

"Many of those pens made up to $2,500 a head or past 600 cents a kilogram, and that for feature, repeat breeder clientele coming back to buy them.

"The regular run of the mill weaner heifers were probably comparable to the steers in a trend but compared to other sales."

READ MORE:

The majority of lighter steers that were under 400kg were not pushing past $2000 a head, although some quality lines from Streatham vendor Cherrymount easily passed that mark, with one pen of 28 Angus steers, 392kg, selling for $2140 or 546c/kg.

That same vendor also offered up some high quality heifers, including one pen of 14 Angus heifers, 393kg, doing better than some of their similar weighted steers, selling at $2540 or 646c/kg.

In fact many vendors benefitted from a resounding interest in quality heifers, including Seriston Pastoral selling a pen of 24 Angus heifers, 371kg, for $2120 or 571c/kg.

Mr Gray said agents were pleased with how the sale turned out with feature lines of weaner cattle doing particularly well.

"Those feature lines from Cherrymount and Seriston Pastoral did well," he said.

"We were expecting it to be cheaper, and it was."

Northern buyers were also a presence, which has been a trend over the last week as floods subside in NSW and transportation of cattle to properties becomes easier

Heavier steers that were past 400kg pushed past $2000 a head regularly

Vendor Tim Menz, Burumbeet, sold a number of the highest per-head prices of the day of those heavier cattle, with a pen of 10 Angus steers, 604kg for 428c/kg and 22 Hereford steers, 610kg, for $2430 or 398c/kg.

He said that the cattle had initially been bought at a Mortlake store sale and was keen to grow them to sell prior to Christmas.

"We are a small operation, and my brother and I regularly keep buying at around 350kg, fattening them up and sell them off," Mr Menz said.

"This year the market has come back a fair way since when we purchased these cattle back, but I think we sold at a good price and it will cover some of our costs,"

"We generally like to finish them, have a really even animal right across the entire body, which is challenging sometimes, but we find the Herefords and the Baldys seem to do really well for what we do too."

PM Laidlaw sold 24 Hereford steers, 522kg, for $2180 or 417c/kg and a pen of 19 Black Baldy steers, 498kg, for $22550 or 452c/kg.

Stonehill sold 25 Angus steers, 433kg, for $2090 or 482c/kg and another pen of 24 Angus steers, 384kg for $2050 or 533c/kg.