There's been a significant lift in both NSW cattle and sheep transactions at saleyards during 2022-23.
Wagga Wagga Livestock Markets Centre has taken the top spot for sheep and lambs during the annual saleyard survey, while Dubbo was out in front for cattle throughput.
At the end of every financial year, the National Livestock Reporting Service, with the support of the Australian Livestock Markets Association, conducts a voluntary survey of saleyard throughput figures by state.
Helping Wagga Wagga secure the honour for another year was the whopping 2,125,276 sheep that went under the hammer at the centre, which was up six per cent from the 2,005,901 recorded in the previous financial year.
That's also up on the 1,818,942 head recorded in 2020-21. The figures also indicated Wagga Wagga accounted for 29.8pc of the sheep sales in NSW during the past financial year.
Central West Livestock Exchange near Forbes was second for sheep transactions with 1,130,910 head. This was up 8.5pc on 2021-22 and accounted for 15.8pc of the state's sheep sales.
Dubbo rounded out the top three for sheep sales with 1,000,469 head, which was up a hefty 23.7pc on the previous year.
In NSW, overall sheep numbers were up by 6.8pc (to just over 7.1 million), while cattle numbers once again cracked the 1.3 million mark to be up 7.3pc.
On the cattle side of the survey, Dubbo's yardings totalled 153,164 head, which was up a substantial 25pc on 2021-22. Dubbo also accounted for 12.3pc of the total NSW cattle transactions.
Tamworth Regional Livestock Exchange continued its upward trend, lifting another 6.9pc to claim the second spot on the listings with 133,485 head, which was 10.7pc of the state's total cattle transactions.
Northern Rivers Livestock Exchange at Casino was unable to maintain its growth in cattle supply, slipping 5.3pc on 2021-22 figures, but its total of 117,131 head was still enough to claim the third position in 2022-23.
Nationally, Roma in Queensland was the top cattle market with 244,778 head.
