Yardings surge for finals weeks of 2023

The Eastern Young Cattle Indicator stands at 538¢/kg, and felt perhaps the most downward pressure this week, losing nearly 6% from the previous week, but at 95¢/kg higher than four weeks ago, was still offering positive results. The store sale at Roma, Queensland, accounted for a quarter of the EYCI throughput and traded at nearly 50¢/kg above the average. Feeders were out in force this week it would seem, taking more than half of all EYCI stock, but only averaging 535¢/kg, while restockers were paying 564¢/kg.

The national feeder steer indicator lost 20¢/kg for the week to land at 285¢/kg, with buyers at Roma paying a significant premium to the average (311¢/kg), but the largest yardings at Wagga Wagga and Carcoar, NSW ended up sitting at about the indicator mark.

Heavy steers only lost about 13¢/kg, with the national price ending the week at 250¢/kg. Roma restockers also boosted the yearling steer price, with 30% of the cattle eligible for that indicator which also dropped slightly to 310¢/kg, coming from there where the price was 30¢/kg above the average.

Yardings dropped by nearly 20,000 head this week after the huge surge the week prior which was the biggest cattle yarding in four years. This week’s yardings were still more than double the same week in 2022, and 45% higher than the average yarding for the past two years. The drop back down predominantly came from Queensland yards, which had increased by 80% the prior week. We are yet to see what that bumper yarding did to slaughter figures this week, but last week’s slaughter fell for the third consecutive week, down by about 3000 head. At 120,887 head though, this was still nearly 13% higher year-on-year for the week.