Weekly supply jump further assists price slide

Nationally heavy lambs had one of the best performances this week, but still lost 14¢/kg, with reports of buyers being quite selective, especially in more southern yards. Heavy lambs are now also the only category trading below year-ago levels, now sitting at a 66¢/kg discount to the same time last year. However, that price indicator did peak over the following fortnight last year, and it currently still sits 38% above the five-year-average. Wagga Wagga, NSW, had nearly 29% of the yarding, with more than double the next closest sized yarding, and the National Livestock Reporting Service quoted the quality as excellent, but not all the usual buyers operating in the export market.

Despite also losing 14¢/kg for the week and nearly 60¢/kg over the past month, restocker lambs remain historically strong, more than $2/kg above where they were this time last year, and 50% higher than the 10-year average. Grass growing conditions remain favourable across many sheep production areas, encouraging restockers to operate on both old and new season lambs. Trade lambs have also dropped about 60¢/kg in four weeks, and they are now trading at basically the same level as this time last year but do remain 50% above the long-term average.

Light lambs have definitely fallen out of favour, experiencing the largest loss for the week of 83¢/kg to land at 1069¢/kg on Friday, and Merino lambs also dipped significantly, losing 47¢/kg this week to sit just above the light lamb price. Meat and Livestock Australia reported downward pressure in WA markets as a primary driver of the big drop in these categories, with less orders from eastern states supporting demand.

Mutton has fallen to its lowest price since the end of May, closing this week 50¢/kg lower at 845¢/kg. The national indicator had the biggest increase in throughput of any major category, with close to an extra 10,000 head sold through NLRS reported yards than the week before. This is in line with mutton processing capacity ramping back up after processor winter shutdowns, and last week’s sheep slaughter lifted by nearly 90% from the week prior (but notably still about half of the volume from the same week last year). Sheep yardings rose a further 6% this week as well.