The Dubbo Regional Livestock Market is hosting some of the largest cattle sales seen in the centre’s history, reaching almost 8000 head yarded at this week’s prime cattle sale.
More than 60,000 head of cattle have been yarded so far in 2018- more than a third of what was recorded for the 2016-17 financial year, putting the selling centre well on the way to maintaining top spot on Meat and Livestock Australia’s saleyard turnover report.
The continuing dry conditions across most of the state are pushing producers to offload numbers, according to local agent Justin Sanderson, Richardson and Sinclair.
“The cattle are coming from (vendors) all over the place,” Mr Sanderson said. “It is such a wide-spread dry, everyone is in unloading mode at the moment.”
A total of 7960 cattle were yarded at the last prime cattle sale (held on April 12), most of which showed signs of the dry however good lines of finished cattle were still on offer.
Despite the dry, Mr Sanderson said there was solid support from buyers.
“Last week, there was a better range of buyers for a slightly smaller number of cattle yarded,” he said. “Southern buyers turned up which influenced the market quite well, alongside two or three extra northern orders which pushed the market along.”
“This week, with the bigger yarding, it was missing. “Overall, prices aren’t that far from the last time it was this dry.”
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