In spite of its huge success the Western District weaner selling model is in need of a rethink.
That is the view of many this past week, who firmly believe the days of selling need to be tweaked in order to give all breeders, in all centres, the best opportunity to receive the greatest competition possible.
Let’s get a few things straight first.
The first two days of steer selling at Hamilton, which are both Angus steer sales, work perfectly with 3200 and 2200-head yarding respectfully. And so do the two Angus heifer sales as well as the centre’s European-breeds mixed sex sale.
Casterton sales, generally speaking, function well as morning offerings before the midday-starting Hamilton sales. However, and due to declining Hereford numbers, which was once the cornerstone of Western District sales, they have been left to flounder with inadequate buyer support on some days.
As all in the industry know numbers draw buyers. And it was clearly obvious this year, the two Hamilton Hereford steer sales and the Elders Casterton Friday steer sale, which all offered less than 2000 head each, did not have enough numbers to hold the big school of buyers that attended the Angus steer days earlier in the week.
For my liking I believe Hereford breeders should lobby their respective agents to rework the Hereford schedule.
That is, it should be possible, with the cooperation of agents, to yard and sell all of the Hereford steers and all of the Hereford heifers on a single day each – and on each of those days conduct a preceding Casterton sale to swell the numbers.
In the case of this year numbers this would have seen one Hereford steer yarding of 3500 to 4000 head at Hamilton, preceded by the 1500-head Elders Casterton steer yarding.
A further side benefit to tweaking the Hamilton-Casterton schedule and reducing the first week of selling from four to three days, it would allow Colac to conduct its steer sale without opposition on the first Monday which wasn’t the case this year. And, Colac could conduct its heifer sale on the Monday of the second week ahead of the Tuesday Hamilton Euro-sale with three Hamilton-Casterton British breeds heifer sales to follow.
It would also allow Mt Gambier and also Warrnambool to conduct their respective annual sales unopposed at the end of each of these weeks, on the Fridays.
I’m not saying all is completely broken. It’s just there is a weakness in the current model that could be easily rectified with cooperation.
After all Western District calf sales are a celebration of the southern beef industry. The occasion belongs as a collective to the breeder industry and not the self-interest of the selling agents, who in the past have not been overly mindful of one another.