As the sheep market posts high prices amid bigger yardings, Australia has been officially labelled as the leading exporter of lamb worldwide.
The announcement came from the 2018 State of the Industry report released by Meat and Livestock Australia last week.
The report also confirmed that in 2017 Australia was the lead exporter of sheep meat in the world, despite representing only six per cent of the global sheep flock.
In NAB’s monthly Rural Commodities Wrap released this week lamb prices have receded slightly from their peak of 875 per kilogram in early September to 768c/kg, but remain considerably higher than this time last year with trade and heavy lamb 150 and 170 cents higher, respectively.
Domestically, across the eastern states, much larger numbers of sheep are being sold as producers cull ahead of a long spring and summer after little rain.
And it is producers experiencing the better seasonal conditions in the south and across the Victorian border that are taking advantage of the big sell off.
In Hay on Friday, 47,000 sheep were penned with a high of $262 a head paid for 434 Merino ewes.
Breeding ewes, aged two to four years sold from $138 to $204.
Last week at West Wyalong’s Sheep Breeders Sale, 14,000 head were yarded, a massive jump from the usual five to 10 thousand.
A top price of $280 was paid for a pen of rising 16-month-old Merino ewes while mixed-sex second cross lambs born in June/July this year made up to $146.
A major portion of the yarding were picked up by Victorian restockers.
Livestock agent, Paul Quade of Quade and Moncrieff Livestock and Property Agents, West Wyalong, said the higher numbers reflected the season.
“A lot of producers have come to terms with it ins’t necessarily what goes on for the rest of this year, but next year,” Mr Quade said.
“They are looking at how they are going to manage their property and their flocks. They need to lighten off now to keep their options open for later on.”
He said the bigger numbers were made up of sheep that they don’t usually see at the sale including three and a half to four and a half year-old ewes that are usually retained for at least another 12 months.
Young ewes that would normally be kept back to join back to terminals were also on offer.
“We missed our northern return buyers from Rankin Springs, Lake Cargellico, Condobolin, Trundle and Parks buyers were all absent,” he said.
“A lot of the stock went into Victoria with good lines of lambs going to Ballarat and breeding ewes to Benalla.”
Mr Quade said producers in the West Wyalong area are tightening their belts.
“Normal classing rates of 25 to 30 per cent in younger ewes have been bumped up to 40 to 50pc in the region allowing producers a little more room,” he said.
“But as soon as the drought breaks, they will only take five to 10 per cent out of their young ewes next time.”
He anticipates depleted sheep numbers next year, with producers keen to hang on to their remaining stock.
“What they are selling now, they won’t be selling this time next year,” he said.
“They are going to be hard to get, people will be hanging on because there will be a good dollar in them.
“It’s a game of two sides, producers are trying to hang on to as many as they can without painting themselves into a corner, and the guys that have a little bit of feed are trying to buy them now because when it the drought does break, and it will break, they are going to be very hard to source.”