ROUGH seas hindered the transportation of about 20,000 lambs across Bass Strait last week, pushing meat processors to secure immediate supply from saleyards.
Heavy rain across the southern states meant several shipments of lambs from Tasmania, destined for over-the-hooks sales, were abandoned.
Further challenges moving trucks around NSW and northern Victoria resulted in a backlog of consignments which further contributed to the stock shortfall.
The result, matched with widespread heavy rain, has boosted the Eastern States Trade Lamb Indicator (ESTLI) to an eight month high.
An estimated 50 trucks failed to be loaded on ships from Tasmania to Victoria across three days due to wild weather at sea with waves of up to six metres.
Roberts Limited livestock manager, Warren Johnston, said extreme weather, where waves exceed six metres, limited the transport of livestock to southern Australian processors last week.
“There would be a knee jerk reaction to the market if a processor is expecting 10 decks of lambs or to come off the boat for the next day’s kill,” Mr Johnston said.
“They have to replace them somewhere and the obvious response is to seek the numbers in the saleyards which we’ve seen fuel and aide the market prices.
Efforts to catch-up on Tasmania’s stock backlog have resulted in extra shipments on Saturday and early this week.
The situation exacerbated supply strains as good autumn rain caused producers to hold onto store lambs, along with female lambs and Merino wethers.
At Dubbo, NSW, on Monday, Landmark Wilson Russ auctioneer Marcus Bruce, Narromine, NSW, said more processors were active at saleyard trying to shore up their numbers.
The sale yarded 23,500 lambs which sold to $209/head.
“Restockers were operating on the lighter lambs but there was good competition on the stock in killable, good processing condition – they were very well sought after,” Mr Bruce said.