Feilding Prime Sale

Wiltshire prime lambs from Honeybourne. Photo / Dave Murdoch

Yesterday's Feilding Prime Stock Sale looked to be an overwhelmingly large yarding of prime lambs to sell at the beginning of play.

At the start of the sale pens of very good male lambs were $2 to $3 a head back on last week's sale prices.

Lamb entries were virtually 7000 head and it did seem as if there may have only been two major buyers operating.

However, once some lighter lambs were offered, more buyers entered the market to the point that there was a general lift in prices from that stage and those sale prices ended up firm on last week especially for those prime lambs that would hang up at 21kg or less.

One-hundred-and ninety-six lambs sold for $150 or better, with Peter Green finding two big male lambs in the back gully that sold for $160.50. The proportion of very heavy lambs was a little higher than last week, but the buyers were getting enough lighter lambs to keep their average weights down.

Store lambs continued to sell to firm demand and still looked dearer than the last store sale for over 1100 lambs.

The ewe yarding was similar in size to last week and sold at prices right up to that.

There do seem to be more buyers operating in the ewe section than previously and another pen of run-with-ram ewes was sold.

There were many more beef cows in this week's full cow sale and there was plenty of variety in the dairy cow section with in-calf and in-milk cows to confuse the sale price range to the point where the prices were a little unpredictable, to say the least. The price ranges for both the good cows and the boner cows had a lower depth to their range and a higher peak.

One main buyer did secure most of the beef cows which were generally in medium condition.

Not all of the in-calf cows were likely to have their calves with foetal blood an attraction and another buyer specialised in the in-milk cows.

The cow sale was described as hard work. A few Hereford/Friesian heifers that were good local trade cattle sold in a tight range, but many of the heifers were less than medium in condition.

Two Angus service bulls also traded in a tight range and the three steers were stores.

Sheep (8105): lambs (6953); heavy prime (2302), 50-64kg, $132.50-$160.50, $2.50-$2.70, firm; medium-good prime (3515), 40-50kg, $112.50-$135, $2.65-$2.85, firm; store (1136), 23-42kg, $61-$122.50, $2.65-$3.06, firm; ewes (1119); good heavy (347), 26-30kg, $118-$132, $4.40-$4.50, firm; medium (450), 21-25kg, $4.20-$4.60, firm; lighter (260), 16-20kg, $64-$88, $4.00-$4.40, firm; RWR (62), $130; male sheep (33), $20-$123.

Cattle (606): steers (3); 295-490kg, $681-$1244, $2.31-$2.54; heifers (111); 400-655kg, $828-$1755, $2.01-$2.68, firm; lesser sorts; 276-380kg, $527-$725, $1.53-$1.91; cows (490); good, heavy, in calf, in-milk; 465-640kg, $814-$1342, $1.68-$2.27, ease; boners; 368-578kg, $548-$1031, $1.49-$2.37, ease; lesser sorts; 318-392kg, $393-$471, $1.00-$1.43; bulls (2); 830-890kg, $1543-$1619, $1.82-$1.86.