The first sale of winter brought a price improvement of as much as $80 a head at Friday’s Dubbo store cattle sale.
Numbers were still low, with vendors choosing to sell through the prime market where there is more competition from processors.
A total of 780 cattle were yarded, with weaner cattle making up the bulk of the yarding.
Mark Garland, PT Lord Dakin and Associates, Dubbo said prices improved by $50 to $80/head on the last store sale, held a fortnight ago.
“We had a quality yarding of cattle,” he said. “We saw mainly weaners with only two pens of cows and calves and no pregnancy-tested-in-calf pens.”
Weaner steers sold from $240/head, topping at $695/head for a line of five to six-month-old Angus steers.
These were offered on account of Max Oram, Mudgee. He also offered a line of heifers of the same description, which sold for $500/head.
Steer weaners averaged $485/head or 268 cents a kilogram, up $85/head on the previous sale’s average.
The best of the heifers was a line of 42 Angus/Hereford crosses from the Lyons family, “Woomera”, Euchareena, which made $590/head.
Heifer weaners sold from $160 for Brahman cross calves and averaged $352/head across the yarding, an improvement of almost $100/head compared to the previous sale.
A single pen of 32 PTIC heifers, with 10 young calves at foot, sold for $810/unit.
The second pen of cows and calves sold for $1140/unit. This was a line of Angus cows with their first calves at foot.
Other feature pens of the day include a line of Angus steer weaners from Richard Sheldon, Wollar. The tops of his draft made $660/head.
A line of 20 Hereford heifers from the Beach family, Warren made $550/head.
The sale was conducted by PT Lord Dakin and Associates, Elders and Landmark Milling Thomas, all of Dubbo.