Thursday, March 28, 2024

OPINION: Wool breeds lead the sales

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Onfarm lamb sales are a significant part of the South Island lamb market and go largely unfollowed.
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While lamb throughput at regular sales has been on the slow side, annual onfarm and special sales have well and truly filled a gap for those willing to make the journey to them.

So, we shall step out of the saleyards this week and have a brief look at the big number that have been going on over the past few weeks.

The beginning of February saw a number of sales held through North and Mid Canterbury and following on from what has been a good early summer, most sale numbers were up because of better lamb survival rates and the lambs came forward in excellent order.

Very strong demand and the better condition on the lambs ensured vendors were well rewarded with prices above expectations.

Mid Canterbury sales included 10,000 Poll Dorset-Merino cross lambs at Castle Ridge plus a small portion from Mount Arrowsmith Station with a big buying bench pushing prices to $70-$134, with most more than $100.

Moving to South Canterbury and into North Otago and the last two weeks have seen plenty of lamb-selling action on the books with 22,500 lambs sold at Rollesby where prime lambs made $90-$135 and stores $65-$90.

Last week Tekapo and Omarama saleyards played host to 18,500 mainly Merino wether lambs. Usually the fine wool lambs are behind meat-breeds but this year is one out of the box. The top Merino wethers made $80-$90, medium $70-$80 and light $55-$65. 

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