Veteran Roma livestock agent Rod Turner only had one response when asked about the ability of buyers to absorb a yarding of 8500 store and prime cattle at today's Roma sale.
"They'll suck them up no worries," the Nutrien Roma livestock manager said.
There was plenty of interest in how the market would respond to the bigger yarding, given recent record-breaking prices and increasing concerns about the potential impact of the spread of the coronavirus on the cattle market.
But competition was strong on all descriptions and agents reported that the market stayed relatively stable with feeder steers only about 10 to 20c/kg off recent highs.
"There are a lot of bigger cattle here today," Mr Turner said during the sale.
"We're still selling but the lighter steers are probably back 10 to 15c/kg on last week."
Mr Turner attributed the larger yarding to big numbers of cattle coming out of regions that had seen good rain in recent weeks.
"They've been trying to get them out but it's been too wet," he said.
"Producers have also had a lot of trouble with Three Day (Sickness) so they've held off selling until they could get a good muster.
"There are a lot of Channel Country cattle here today as well as cattle from northern NSW, places like Brewarrina and Walgett."
Cyril Close, TopX Roma, said he was pleased with the strength of the sale given there are also larger yardings expected at Gracemere (5500 head) and Emerald (3500 head) later this week.
He said coronavirus concerns might have driven some producers to offload stock but the season was still the main factor.
"It's just dried out so we can now get cattle out and we've also seen cattle coming in from those western areas where producers are losing the battle against the grasshoppers," he said.
"There might have been some people wondering about what they are going to shutdown next and considering all that I think we've come away with a pretty good result here today.
"The fat cow market is back a bit. There are probably over 1000 fat cows here today and they might be back 20 to 30 cents on last week."
Among the larger western vendors was the Archer family, Wanora, Winton, who offloaded 518 Brangus cross and Brahman cross steers. Averaging 286kg, the steers topped at 462c/kg to average 428c/kg to return $1222/head.
Col Archer was on hand to see the sale and said it had been a "light" season on their property 100km north west of Winton.
Fellow vendor, Daggy Chandler, Cobbaha, Injune, is enjoying a better run when it comes to rain and was at the sale to see his two pens of 51 Droughtmaster cross steers sell.
The Chandler's steers topped at 454c/kg to average 424c/kg at 294kg to return an average of $1246/head.
The combined Roma Store and Prime Sale was close to concluding when this story was filed on Tuesday afternoon and a full report will be available on this website tomorrow.
