IT MAY have been a bit longer coming this year, but the sucker lambs are finally hitting the market, and in bigger numbers.
The market at Forbes on Tuesday saw its first week where numbers of new season lambs exceeded those of the old season.
Forbes Livestock and Agency Company director Tim Mackay expected the market would start to firm up in the next few weeks due to the improvement in quality brought about by the new lambs.
“The new lambs that are hitting the market are carrying a bit more weight than many of the ones earlier in the season, and this should help to firm up the prices,” he said.
Norman C. Bellamy livestock agent Damien Stephenson, Cowra, said the yarding at Cowra was getting close to consisting of about 60 per cent sucker lambs each week now.
Mr Stephenson said the quality of the lambs was improving remarkably each week, but hot dry winds this week may start to dry the fresh lambs out if there is no rain next week.
He said they had a major correction in the market a fortnight ago which had followed an over inflated market at Cowra the week prior.
“It fell about $10 to $15 across the board, but in some places it was quite a lot more than that.”
The bulk of the sucker lambs coming through Cowra were the medium trade weights about 22 kilograms (carcase weight), as well as a scattering of the lighter restocker types.
Mr Stephenson said the lighter types (20kg) had settled into a pattern of about $100 to $110, while the 21kg to 22kg lambs were bringing about $115 to $120
“They have to be a pretty big sucker to get over the $120 mark at the moment, the ceiling appears to be $130,” he said.
Mr Stephenson said it’s no surprise at this time of year the market gets a bit cheaper with the flood of lamb hitting the market.
However, he said the Cowra sucker market was $10 dearer than the same time last year.
Mr Stephenson said the general consensus with producers was if their lambs were making more than $100 they were satisfied.
“At that return for a four- to five-month-old lamb everybody is making money out of them right through the chain,” he said.
However, while the prices were slightly stronger, numbers were back by about 3000 head from last year’s 10,000 head yardings at this time.
He said some clients opted to shear their lambs and hold on to them for the October and November markets.
Buyers were also no longer chasing older lambs unless they were top quality.
Breakout River Meats were the main buyer at the moment, while JBS Swift was more active on the better condition older lambs, and Coles was also active.
It’s a different story towards Dubbo where the drier season had hit home.
Just 3600 new season lambs from a total lamb yarding of 28,000 were offered on Monday at Dubbo and agents have little reason to expect this to change.
Barlow and Peadon Schute Bell director Andrew Peadon said many people would be forced to wean and shear their lambs in order to get them ready for market.
He said the next few weeks could see some people out towards Coonamble opening the gates to their failing wheat crops in a bid to feed sheep and lambs.
“Even if we got rain in the next couple of weeks I think that area has missed the boat – it won’t have much impact on the supply of well finished sucker lambs.”
