Calves sold at Warrnambool yesterday for $12 a head — even less than the $14 paid at Camperdown on Tuesday when pens of cattle were also passed in.

The slump in prices is seen as the low point in a cycle caused by near-drought conditions and the high cost of feed.

Elders agent Ken Boyd said he had clients who were putting calves down rather than going through the expense of trying to sell them.

He said putting in an identification tag worth $1.50, coupled with commission, yard fees and cartage, meant calves destined for slaughter were not worth feeding for more than a couple of days if unsold. 

Camperdown Elders agent Allan Hickey, an agent for 44 years, said the market was “extremely tired”.

“People are on the edge of panic,” Mr Hickey said. 

‘‘It’s as bad as I’ve seen it. It’s not that the break is excessively late, but the compounding fact is it started to get dry so early, in late October.” 

J & J Kelly agent Mick Ryan said the lowest price paid yesterday at the Warrnambool saleyards was $12 for Jersey calves weighing an estimated 20 kilograms. “Prices did go through a similar low cycle last year with calves down to $20 and under, but prices are as bad as I can recall in 20-plus years as a stock agent,” he said.

“Conditions across the south-west are obviously extremely dry. No one has any feed and the price of feed is pretty high. 

‘‘This is obviously the down-point in the cycle but we need rain real soon or we’ll all be in trouble. 

‘‘Farmers across the district are feeling it pretty bad.”

Mr Ryan said there was a yarding of 1400 head of cattle at Warrnambool yesterday.

“Prices were very dull. Quality was very tough, there wasn’t much there at all and they’re getting plainer by the week,” he said.

“On the upside, if anyone does have feed it’s a great opportunity to buy.”

The Standard rural editor Steve Hynes said pens of cattle were passed in at auction at Camperdown on Tuesday.

“Prices are as low as I can recall,” he said.

‘‘On Tuesday some pens of poor to plain one-score dairy cows with passed in after processors offered very low prices.”

Prices are so low that  farmers have recalled the 1982 drought when mature cows were sold for 50 cents and farmers were paid $5 a head by the government to have cattle destroyed and put in pits at The Cove.

Warrnambool Stockagents Association president Phil Keane, who is also an agent for Saffin Kerr Bowen Wilson, said prices were generally $150 to $200 down on last year.

“But they’re not falling each week,” he said.

“Bullocks and cows held up today.

“Young cattle are not making what they were but the quality has gone.

“Eighty-five per cent of young cattle would not be killable and, with the price of feed, no one is prepared to turn them out. 

“There’s only one thing that will fix it and that’s a damn good downpour.”