PRICES shot to a high of $337.20 at the lamb market in Wagga on Thursday on the back of the buoyant result of last week's $315.
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Extra-heavy lambs made more than $340 last year but to see competition heating up during such a tough season comes as a boon for vendors.
John and Stephanie Sandow, "Iowa", West Wyalong describe themselves as "grain farmers" who use lambs to value add.
But they were certainly thrilled when the hammer fell on their lambs, which are destined for the export market, after being bought by Fletcher International.
Mr Sandow said he had been buying lambs and finishing them in the feedlot. Livestock agent Kyle Sturgess said the market was up by $15 and Wagga, in particular, was leading the trend.
Mr Sturgess said vendors and buyers had watched prices increase in recent weeks and the rewards were there for those people who put lambs in feedlots and finished them well.
It wasn't just the extra-heavy lambs which were in demand. There was some high prices paid for stores with both processors and restocker competition pushing values higher.
In another standout sale vendor Geoff Brill of "Glenvale," Ganmain had his lambs sell to $331.20 a head.
Mr Brill said the 103 lambs he had on offer were out of first cross ewes and Poll Dorset rams and weighed an average of 78kg.
The lambs were the first ones he offered from the July-August 2018 drop.
"They were ready to go, plus we wanted to get some money for them while its on offer," Mr Brill said.
"There's some more ready there so we'll have another go next week," he said.
"It's a really strong market, whether it's sustainable or not we don't know but it's good to be a part of it."
Mr Brill said the lambs were in a feedlot for eight weeks before the sale, fed a diet of barley, wheat and faba beans.
Ben and Sally Cassidy of "Foylewood", Ariah Park sold 110 second-cross lambs. Their best pen of August-drop lambs made $236 a head.
The Cassidy's sell 3500 lambs a year but usually don't hold on to them for as long as they have this year.
"We usually sell as small trade lambs but we decided to put a few on feeders and hoped the price to go up, and it did so we're pretty lucky."
In all 50,390 sheep and lambs were offered which was down from the initial draw of 58,400.
