Dry softens prime cattle prices

Nutrien agent Peter Cabot reported a good quality yarding where heavy steers and females were in great condition with all coming off grass during the weekly Wagga Wagga prime sale on Monday.

"There hasn't been any supplementary feeding for the past six months, but we still had a lot of good heavy steers and also cows with plenty of weight up to 700kg," Mr Cabot said.

"The quality overall was excellent, but we only yarded 2800 which is back a bit."

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Mr Cabot said the market was starting to soften for all categories as the catchment areas for the saleyards was starting to look for rain.

"I thought overall the market was a bit cheaper by 10c/kg," he said.

"Winter is nearly on us and restockers are holding back on their buying."

Mr Cabot attributed the weaker trend to the lack of restocker competition.

"They had certainly been pushing the processors, but their interest was not so strong on Monday," he said.

The dry was also having an impact at Forbes where McCarron Cullinane Chudleigh agent Adam Chudleigh said buyers were becoming a bit more selective on trade cattle as numbers eased slightly on previous sale.

"Although there was a good bit of weight throughout the yarding, secondary cattle are being discounted," Mr Chudleigh said.

"There is still interest from processors and restockers, but there is not as much pressure and the cattle have to be right."

Mr Chudleigh said values at the Forbes sale had softened slightly, but good cattle were still making the money.

Numbers also eased slightly at Inverell with CL Squires and Company agent Robbie Bloch, Inverell, quoting the sale as "marginally soft because the quality wasn't there".

"We still had cattle with condition but there were secondary cattle and although they were killable, buyers held back a bit which stopped the market from becoming dearer," he said.

"Heavy feeder steers sold very well as did grown steers for processing but I thought that the cows were 2c/kg to 3c/kg cheaper."

Elders agent James Kennedy quoted the Finley market last week as being "overall pretty firm" with keen competition from the trade.

"Grown steers up to 630kg sold for 379c/kg which was probably a little better due to the quality."

Mr Kennedy also noted the cows were up 5c/kg on the better quality offered.

"We had a very good run of grain-fed Euro cattle which could have also been five cents dearer," he said.

"The heifers sold up to 518c/kg, while the Euro steers sold to 516c/kg."

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