Competition for Mutton improved at Bendigo

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Yarding - 18,250

Few less lambs with 11,700 yarded, but more sheep at 6500 head. Lamb quality remained very mixed, with some good fed heavy lambs but a lot of plain stock once under 24kg cwt. Three domestic buyers were still absent and support from other processors tended to be sporadic. Lamb prices fluctuated. There was some dearer patches over the very best bred and fed lambs, but the market tended to drift down on the plainer trade and light lambs which lacked buying depth. Overall there wasn’t a lot of change to estimated cents per kilogram costs compared to last week. The lead pens of processing lambs trended at 700c to 740c/kg, while the general run still varied from 610c to 680c/kg.

Export lambs over 30kg cwt from $215 to a top of $245 at a ballpark cost of 715c/kg cwt. There was mixed outcomes for heavy lambs, 26-30kg cwt, as evidenced by the price spread of $182 to $224. - there was lambs around 27-28kg cwt which were cheaper in this category. Heavy trades $160 to $196/head. Where the market lacked momentum was on medium trades lacking fat cover at $139 to $172 and plainer light trades at $120 to $146. A couple of decent lines of young shorn store lambs sold dearer at $96 to $112, but any secondary small lambs were often cheaper.

Competition for mutton improved, heavy ewes up $5 to $15 at $97 to a top of $143 to trend around 350c/kg cwt. But light and secondary sheep remained capped at $20 to $70 at less than 300c/kg cwt.

https://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/Services/Bendigo-Livestock-Exchange