Grafton store sale last Thursday yarded 1278 head with the usual buyers sending cattle to mainly Queensland and Victoria, although local producers with grass took advantage of low prices.
Steers to 400 kilograms totalled 751 head averaging 214.7 cents a kilogram or $549, reaching a top of 280c/kg and $1043.
Heavier steers, up to six tooth, brought strong demand from grass finishers like Brian Killmore, Smoky, near Hat Head on the lower Macleay and from feedlotters in southern Queensland, through Landmark Toowoomba while pens of primarily Angus weaner steers went to Victoria to go onto either grass or silage.
Volume buyer Landmark Toowoomba paid to a top of $1350 for Charolais, 540kg at 250c/kg and $1313 for a four-tooth brindle Brahman-cross steer, 525kg, also at 250c/kg.
Angus weaners 353kg made the top cents a kilogram price at 280c/kg or $991 going to Landmark Toowoomba, Qld. Bindaree Beef paid $935 for another pen of the same, 351kg, and will put them directly on feed.
Angus 261kg sold to 242c/kg or $632 going to Victoria.
Charolais-cross steers from firs-cross cows by the Chapman family, Fineflower, weighing 232kg made 256c/kg or $594.
Pure French-based Charolais from Geoff Anderson, Woodford Island, 212kg, made 250c/kg or $531.
Heifers to 540kg, 225 head, averaged 177.9c/kg or $418 reaching a top of $965.
At open auction a pen of ultra-black heifers, red tagged as tested in calf, sold for $870 to Adrian McIntyre, Nana Glen, where there is winter feed on its second chomp. Brangus weaner heifers, 273kg, produced by Sam Hyatt, Glenreagh, went back to the paddock at Pillar Valley for $596 at 218c/kg.
Dorrigo grazier Peter Taggart bought milk-tooth Brangus heifers, 298kg for 214c/kg or $638.