Scone Stock Report: Feb 7

By Stuart Sheldrake

THERE were 1080 cattle yarded in what was a very strong market especially for younger trade cattle.

There were not as many export cattle this week, with approximately 180 yarded.

Cows might have been 5 cents cheaper across the board, but overall still pretty strong.

The majority of yarding today it was much cleaner yarding of cattle in quality.

There was hardly a butcher calf yarded, the majority were restock cattle.

The heavy feeder cattle were probably for to a couple of cents cheaper but lighter weaner cattle and mid-weights of early 300 kilo weaner steers especially and heifers they could have been another five or eight cents dearer.

It is starting to get very dry in places and you can see the effects in the cattle.

The only thing is there is a bit of activity in the north and whether we get anything out of that, but I’m not a weatherman!

Rain would be great at the moment, but for many of the farmers in the west they’d probably wait another month before they’d really love it in terms of getting their crops in and getting their ground worked up, so February is still probably a little bit early for your oat crops and that sort of thing.

In another three or four weeks some decent rain would be ideal.

Store cattle sale: 11am start, February 16.