Ladies first, and the restocker yearling heifer indicator climbed 16% nationally, to sit at the biggest year-on-year premium of any of the major price points. Of the nearly 4000 head eligible for the indicator, Queensland offered 2750 of them, meaning the state price actually dipped, but by less than 1¢/kg. Comparatively, in NSW the price jumped 45¢/kg to above 500¢/kg, with Wagga Wagga up to 530¢/kg and the NLRS quoting restocking order prevalent for Victoria and northern NSW.
Feeder steers were the other hot commodity this week, experiencing the largest increase and closing the week 23¢/kg higher at 529¢/kg. This is the highest the national indicator has been since the same time in 2022, putting it 33% higher year-on-year and 30% above the five-year-average. A majority of the eligible stock came out of NSW yards, but again the price was higher there at 558¢/kg, while the price lost ground in Queensland, dropping 16¢/kg for the week.
Looking at the National Young Cattle Indicator, the top two sources of supply were the QLD and NSW online cattle sales, both with 20% of the throughput. The NYCI rose by 15¢/kg for the week to 532¢/kg but breaking it down by state there was more than a 50¢/kg between Qld (504¢/kg) and NSW (558¢/kg). While a vast majority of NYCI eligible stock were in the 200-280kg weight range, it was the 330-400kg cattle which saw the biggest price increase, up 26¢/kg, and sat at the strongest average. This demonstrating where the restockers, backgrounders and feeders are now jostling for the same product.
Last week’s national cattle slaughter was on-par with year-ago levels and lower week-on-week, reflective of the public holiday. What was interesting was the Female Slaughter Rate. It fell below 47% for the week, which is the first time the weekly report from the National Livestock Reporting Service has reflected a figure this low for at least this quarter. This is on the back of a FSR of 53% for the first quarter of the year, putting it above 50% for two whole years.
Grain or grass, everyone is in the market
Next week
With domestic demand still driving the market, the filling of export trade quotas, which is likely to occur in the coming weeks shouldn’t be expected to have much of an impact in the short term on the market. More wet weather will only continue to support the restocker support, and we will wait and see how much importance is placed on recent El Nino declarations, but short term the feed in many southern areas is already in the paddocks.
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Click on graph to expand
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Data sources: MLA, BOM, Mecardo
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