Solid numbers of cattle were penned at Dalby’s cattle sale on Wednesday with 4000 head yarded in total.
Andrew Woodrow, Wagoo, St George decided to sell the top-end of his cattle at Dalby Saleyard with 208 head of both Charolais/Santa Gertrudis-cross bullocks and grown steers consigned for the sale.
Mr Woodrow runs a cattle trading operation situated north of St George at the junction of the Maranoa and Balonne rivers.
The cattle operation had purchased the steers at Roma’s store sale and grew the line out on a Forage Sorghum crop over Summer and Autumn seasons.
The steers were purchased at an average weight of 310 kilograms live weight across the consignments.
“We were fortunate enough to get some late summer rain to put a fodder crop in the ground on our property,” Mr Woodrow said.
“We bought these steers at solid market prices and the scattered rainfall last week has boosted our confidence of selling the steers as prime cattle at good price returns.”
Mr Woodrow said his confidence in cattle market prices is currently “buoyant” and would like to see prices remain at their current levels.
He also predicted most of his prime steers yarded at Dalby’s cattle sale would average around 600 kilograms live weight.
“The rainfall last week brought only 18 millimetres for us but that’s not going to do much at this time of year,” he said.
Mr Woodrow noted his property currently had a good standing of dry grass, which would enable them to restock light weaner steers after the sale of his prime cattle.
The Woodrow family generally source store cattle from across south west Queensland plus northern and central New South Wales.
“We have good dry grass for feed and if we can get some good Spring rain then our cattle operation will be in a good seasonal position,” Mr Woodrow said.
Overall the Woodrow family, who trade as AW9 Pastoral, sold their steers to a top of 291 cents-a-kilogram for 656 kilograms to return $1911/head and up to $2044/head. The entire consignment of 208 head of steers averaged 289 cents-a-kilogram for 648 kilograms on average to return $1876/head.
Dalby Interim Cattle Market Report
There was a small increase in supply to 3977 at Dalby on Wednesday, July 4. A large panel of export buyers was present and included in the line-up was some interstate processors. Prices lifted for a number for classes, with heavy weight yearling steers to feed average 12c better, according to the NLRS. Medium weight yearling heifers to feed for the domestic markets gained over 30c while heavy weights were 1c to 3c/kg dearer. Heavy grown steers and bullocks experienced very little change on the improvements of the previous week.
However, all classes of cows were in demand with improvements of 8c to 16c/kg.
Light weight yearling steers to feed have made from 260c to 290.2c to average 279.1c/kg. Medium weight yearling heifers to feed have made from 252.3c to 286.2c to average 268.8c/kg.
Heavy weight grown steers to processors have made from 270c to 298.2c to average 288.5c/kg. Too few grown heifers have sold at the time of this interim report for a reliable quote. Heavy weight cows have made from 197.2c to 224.2c to average 211.9c and be up 8c/kg. The best of the bulls has made to 260.2c/kg at the time of this report.