Charters Towers combined agents yarded a total of 1914 cattle, consisting of 711 prime cattle and 1203 store cattle.
The prime cattle consisted of 23 bullocks, 39 heifers, 502 cows and 147 bulls. Store cattle consisted of 540 steers, 564 heifers and 99 cows and calves.
Cattle comprised smaller lines of mixed quality bullocks and heifers, with a few larger runs of finished and store cows selling to a competitive buying panel.
The yarding was drawn from Richmond, Hughenden, Pentland, Einasleigh, Laura, Mt Surprise Ingham, local and coastal areas.
There were limited numbers of bullocks and heifers to reliably quote but basically unchanged. Cows were 5-10c dearer and bulls were 5c dearer on last week's rates.
Prime quotes:
Steers and bullocks under 500kg sold to 554c and averaged 437c, and those over 500kg topped at 428c to average 417c. Heifers under 540kg sold to 456c and averaged 417c. Cows under 400kg made 406c and averaged 327c, while cows over 400kg reached 408c, averaging 372c. Bulls under 450kg made 802c and averaged 423c, while bulls over 450kg reached 430c to average 359c.
Bullocks topped at 456c on a/c Burdekin Downs that weighed 500kg to return $2280/hd. Best priced trade heifers were presented on a/c LW and CJ Wheeler that sold for 450c, weighing 400kg to return $1800/hd. The top pen of cows was sold by Hewitt Pastoral for 398c, weighing 546kg to return $2172/hd. Bulls sold on a/c Dunluce Grazing topped at 420c and weighed 560kg, to return $2352/hd.
Store quotes:
Store cattle were made up of a few larger runs of steers and heifers as well as smaller lines of local good quality weaners with all of the stores reaching very competitive rates with a strong buying panel present.
Steers under 200kg reached 826c to average 755c, steers 200 - 320kg sold to 826c, averaging 682c, steers 320 - 400kg topped at 554c and averaged 498c and steers over 400kg sold to 514c to average 438c. Heifers under 200kg topped at 720c and averaged 677c, heifers 200 - 320kg sold to 720c, averaging 533c, and heifers 320 - 370kg made 476c to average 447c.
A pen of 15 steers a/c SJ and RJ Neal made 826c and weighed 215kg to return $1775/hd. A good pen of five heifers on a/c BJ Denton and SM made 476c weighed 353kg returning $1685/hd. A run of 90 heifers a/c Matt McClymont made 720c and weighed an average of 196kg to return $1415/hd. 16 cows and 14 calves sold on a/c Broad Trade returned $2800/unit.
