TRANGIE first-cross lamb producer Tony Quigley would like to see prices remain at 600 cents a kilogram (carcase weight) or better for another six to eight weeks to generate a return on the costs of supplementary feeding due to the dry autumn and wet winter.
Mr Quigley said his family’s Quigley Farms operation totalled 6500 hectares across five farms, which was mainly cropping, plus about 1300 Merino ewes of Mullungudgery and Egelabra blood joined to Border Leicester rams. His 650 September/October-drop lambs have just been shorn, timed to suit the first-cross ewe buyers at Narromine come the big ewe sales in spring.
He would usually have sold some weathers by now, but this had been delayed by the wet. “Muntham” has received 350 millimetres of rain since Anzac Day.
However, the lambs had been on grain (oats, wheat and oaten hay) from March to mid May due to the dry autumn and then forage oats with grain in self feeders to keep them developing since.
