At Narromine regular Store Sheep Sale on Wednesday May 18, numbers were very difficult to find.
A reported yarding of 9530 head was a further 1500 head down on the previous light yarding of store sheep at Narromine.
The yarding consisted of a much greater number of plainer sheep than usual, and this no doubt is a direct result of the rapidly expanding areas of semi-drought conditions.
Potential buyers came from Bendigo, Warren, Forbes, Coonamble, Boggabri, Wodonga, Cowra, Crookwell and local areas. Processors were also active on suitable lines.
The crowd was quite considerable when the sale commenced, but quickly downsized as the sale progressed indicating that many were there to assess the value of their own livestock under the current price correction.
Some quotes include: First-cross ewes, July/August 2010 drop, January shorn $199.
The balance of the better pens of first-cross ewes sold in the range of $152 to $185.
First-cross ewes lacking bloom and growth sold from $93 to $144.
First-cross ewes, one and a half years, scanned in lamb, sold from $149 to $190. Faith appears to be still strong in the prime lamb market with the best of the store lambs reaching $125.
Merino ewes appeared to provide value with one and a half-year-old, September shorn, depastured with Border Leicester rams reaching $144. Merino ewes, three years, October shorn, NSM $141.
A very smart line of ewes, five and a half years, February shorn, scanned 148 per cent to White Suffolk reached $177.
The plainer end of the Merino ewe category lacking quality, condition and in the main joined to Merino rams sold from $70 to $81.
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Dubbo's most recent prime cattle sale saw a very plain offering mainly drawn from the west and north-west where seasonal conditions are deteriorating rapidly.
The yarding was once again set at a level well below 2000 head and although some major export processor did not participate in the sale, the market once again proved resilient and moved higher.
My thoughts are that for the time being the price genie is out of the bottle and no matter how hard companies try to contain price rises, they may be powerless to stop this upswing.
Available numbers of suitable cattle continue to decline in this part of the world, but there are still many pockets across eastern Australia where good stock feed is available.
World protein levels are historically at a low level with consistent demand.
Graziers in better areas will continue to bid against feedlotters and processor to keep the market buoyant as we move into the winter months.
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Rarely do we see so few clearing sale ads in the major rural journal as is the case at the present time.
To me this indicates the hard slog that it must be to sell rural properties in the current economic climate.
The last copy of The Land newspaper had three genuine rural clearing sales listed.
One was at Copmanhurst near Grafton, the second sale was listed to be held at Leeton and one of our local agents had a genuine farm clearing sale at Wellington.
No doubt many graziers who in the past had looked to expand are now trying to consolidate after 10 years of struggle, and the flow of money out of the capital cities seems to have dwindled to a trickle.
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