Stock Report: March 13

By Stuart Sheldrake

THERE were 1,500 cattle yarded this week, a couple of hundred more than last week.

There were a good number of cows and the cows could have been 10 to 15 cents dearer across the board.

A good run of fresher calves out of the west, Coolah and Merriwa and a few calves out of Timor in pockets that had had a bit of a season and they were probably dearer especially for the butcher types; they were better calves than we have been seeing.

There were also some good cross bred lighter weight calves and they were firm.

We saw not a lot, but a few feeder cattle that were dearer also.

We’d normally have our weaner sale next month and there definitely won’t be a weaner sale this year, because they are all gone.

The calves today that were very good, you’d normally be selling lots of those at the moment, but obviously they have been sold off prior to Christmas and January and February.

Our biggest tell tale of the local market will be next year and the reason for that is there have been cows that have been sold off so this time next year there won’t be their progeny next year, when numbers are down overall.