So many farmers to bail out of store lambs when there was a much smaller buyer bench with South Island buyers, who have been big supporters of the North Island lamb market in recent weeks, no longer as active.
Those doing the buying at Stortford Lodge came from areas that did receive a rain last week, including Wairoa, Taupo and Rotorua.
The better male lambs were down between $14-$17 a lamb while similar ewe lambs were $18-$25 back. Better male lambs averaged $2.70-$2.75/kg LW while better ewe lambs were $2.30-$2.45.
Many ewe lambs were medium and lighter weights and sold for $1.95-$2.15/kg.
Bremner says store lamb prices are back to 2017 levels but the big question is how much further will they fall.
An expected flow-on of low prices failed to materialise at Feilding on Friday.
Analyst Reece Brick says the sale went better than everyone expected. Most of the 20,000 head were ewe lambs, which were back about $10 on last week, with the heavy end doing especially well.
Most of them went to Wairarapa.
