Another cold sale day in the prime sheep pens did not force the sale prices down at yesterday's Feilding Prime Stock Sale.
In fact, quite the opposite occurred with a solid lift in all lamb sale prices and a definite firming in ewe prices. A similar number of lambs to last week were yarded but a new and very difficult to beat buyer arrived for this sale and he purchased large numbers.
This forced the regular buyers to lift their sights as well and sale prices lifted across all weight ranges, including those very heavy male lambs that are normally discounted.
Evidence of that is in the form of the top prices with Richard Brown selling 51 shorn male lambs for $194 and RD & GT Knight selling 24 for $190 and over 200 lambs made $170 or more. The medium weight lambs did sell for more cents/kg as a rule but such was the increase in heavy lamb prices that the margin closed noticeably.
Store lambs were also strong. Many lamb finishers are struggling to finish lambs in the wintry conditions and a reasonable number of forward store lambs were entered today with probably a new seasonal cents/kg high paid for some pens.