Lambs sell to $342 at Yass and $344 at Forbes

Lambs at Forbes on Tuesday sold to a top of $344 a head, while at Yass yesterday lambs hit $342 a head. Both are record prices for those individual centres.

The Australian lamb record still sits at $354.2 for lambs sold at Wagga Wagga last month.

The top priced lambs at Forbes were offered by Malcolm Cruickshank, Parkes, for an excellent line of well finished lambs. His top pen hit $344, while the average across 250 head was $326.32.

Traditionally, once new season lambs start to hit the saleyards the lamb market cools, however the price slip may not be as evident this year due to limited supplies.

This week a handy supply of sucker lambs hit the Forbes market, but prices for trade lambs still lifted on average $3 to $4 a head.

The bulk of the new season lambs sold from $203 to $240/head.

Meanwhile, at South Eastern Livestock Exchange (SELX), Yass, J and M Jamieson, Gundagai, sold lambs for $342 a head through agency Agstock.

The lambs were estimated to weigh 38 kilograms (carcase weight), making the sale 900 cents a kilogram.

Agstock agent Sam Hunter sold the record lambs for J and M Jamieson to the Australian Lamb Company, Victoria.

"Lambs have been making $330 to $354 during the past month or so," Mr Hunter said.

He said the high prices were due to a shortage in numbers due to the drought.

New season lambs also made an appearance at Cootamundra lamb sale yesterday selling from $195 to $231/head.

Once again the trade lamb market was dearer indicating no negative affect on older lamb prices.

At Cootamundra the top heavy lambs sold for $314 a head.

Although the yarding at Carcoar this week was generally plainer, trade lambs were still $4 to $6 dearer.

The 18kg to 24kg lambs sold from $163 to $255 to average from 970c/kg to 1005c/kg.

Three pens of trade weight new season lambs sold from $170 to $190/head.

Heavy weight lambs were $8 dearer, with the extra heavy, four-scores making from $245 to $315/head.