Peter Walsh & Associates auctioneer Madison Taylor says with very little interest in breeding ewes, it was a battle to sell the Merinos, although the half-breds fared a little better.
“A lot of ewes struggled from a real lack of interest with people just not getting into breeding,” Taylor said.
“We had a handful of regular buyers, but no real new faces.
“The feature of the day was a capital stock line from Rugged Ridges that held the sale together.”
It was the processors that kept the sale honest.
“There’s good demand at present for the lesser quality cuts of meat and processed meats, so we had processors buying up good numbers, it was processors versus a very few other buyers on the Merinos,” he said.
“They kept everyone honest on the buying front.”
The half-bred ewes had a better run.
“We had good numbers of half-breds and they were singing along very well,” he said.
Unlike the Merinos that on average fetched values $20 under expectation, the half-breds were $15-$20 ahead of the market.
“It would be fair to say it was about meeting the market and that’s all you can ask for,” he said.
The top price in the half-breds was $206 for a line of two-tooths sold by Awarima Farming Partnership from Fairlie, while the four, five and six-year-old half-bred ewes from Maryburn Station in Tekapo sold from $150-$183.
In the Merinos it was a line of 1200 two-tooths from The Wolds in Tekapo that fetched the top price of the day at $187, while a line of annual draft ewes sold for $132.
On average across the two sales other Merino ewes sold from $100-$120.
Just under 9000 ewes were offered from 22 stations across both the Omarama and Tekapo sales.
