NZ Farmers Livestock agent Stu Wells said that was more than double the number at Frankton’s combined PGG Wrightson/NZ Farmers Livestock sale a week earlier.
Calves at the top end of the Friesian market are attracting a couple of hundred dollars while interest in beef calves is strong, with the better end selling for between $330 and $350 and the mid end $250 to $280 for a five to six-day-old calf.
Wells expects this week’s Frankton sale to attract about 1400 calves as calving numbers in Waikato begin to peak.
He is not aware of any concern about Mycoplasma bovis among either buyers or sellers, saying most people have got their head around it better this year than last.
Further down the island, where calving is slightly later, the calf sale season began at Manfeild Park last week.
PGG Wrightson agent Pete Forrest said there were just over 200 calves yarded at Monday’s sale, with another 132 on Thursday.
Good Friesian bulls at the earlier sale went for between $220 and $260 while better Charolais-cross bulls were $270 to $340, Hereford/Friesian bulls $270 to $290 and Angus/Friesian bulls $270 to $290.
The sale attracted a good bench of buyers from the central North Island with some of the top calves two to three weeks old.
As expected, Thursday’s Manfeild sale was smaller in numbers and the size of the buyer bench.
Friesian bull prices eased slightly from Monday to $185 to $210 for the top pens.
Beef bull sales were solid with the top Hereford/Friesian calves selling for $280 to $335 with Angus crosses $220 to $230.
Beef heifers were $200 to $255 for good Hereford-Friesian while the best Angus crosses were $200 to $240.
It is still too early to predict how the central North Island calf market will pan out this year as last week’s sales were the first of the season but at this stage it looks to be similar to last year, Forrest said.
