July in review: Store lamb prices hit dizzy heights

PGG Wrightson livestock manager Neil Common says a global shortage of lamb is keeping the market buoyant. Photo / File

Good male lambs made $190, ewe lambs broke $160.

July was the month of the store lamb at Stortford Lodge.

Each week prices rose to new and somewhat dizzy heights. By the end of the month ewe lambs were making the same money that male lambs did a month earlier.

Agents and bystanders were left shaking their heads as good male lambs made $190, good money for a prime lamb last month, and ewe lambs broke through the $160 mark.
The huge money had several side effects. One was that many more lambs were going through the yards, some of them more than once. In fact, about 47,000 lambs were sold in July this year, 17,000 more than in July last year.

Another was the appearance of many new names at the yards as farmers who did not usually sell there went after the good money.

Some lambs were on their second trip through the saleyards as finishers could make their budgeted margins without having to carry them all winter.

Another feature of the yardings, which often exceeded 10,000 head, was their overall good quality. Many of the lambs were close to being finished.

Most of them stayed in Hawke's Bay but outside buyers, especially from Waikato and Northland, were active.

PGG Wrightson livestock manager Neil Common said a shortage of lamb around the world and growing demand from China was keeping the market buoyant.

Prime lamb prices also headed upward during July. Pens of $200 were not uncommon with the top price being $224. Many of the pens of male lambs topped the 50kg l/w mark.
Numbers of prime lambs coming forward lifted during the month as pruning work began on orchards. This will increase this month as paddocks are prepared for summer crops.
Prime ewe prices were steady for a month of smaller yardings. The quality also slipped in that time with few heavy ewes offered. The best ewes were still making better than $180 and even lighter ones were around $100.

In-lamb ewes did not come forward in the usual numbers. Common said that, when they were there, the money was barely better than prime money so farmers probably decided to keep them on the farm and offload store lambs early instead.

"They could reappear later with their lambs at foot."

The best of the ewes, in lamb to an early terminal sire, touched $200 during the month.
In the cattle sales prime animals lifted steadily. Cow prices, especially in calf ones, lifted sharply to more than $2.50/kg.

Heavy angus oxen regularly broke the $3/kg mark with one pen of 612kg animals reaching $3.25/kg. Store cattle also sold well, again cows led the way. Most of the in-calf cows were bought to farm on rather than going to the works.

Common said prices lifted $200 to $250 on autumn sales.

He said farmers were feeling good and enjoying a mild winter so far. Grass growth has been steady all winter and the spring surge is not far away.

Early lambing was going well although some were feeling the effects of a facial eczema outbreak on their ewe flocks.

Markets were looking good and the political turmoil and uncertainty caused by Brexit around the world seemed to be having little effect on confidence or prices.