The spring lamb selling season at the Hamilton Regional Livestock Exchange is off to a great start with prices topping at $222 a head on Wednesday.
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Agents said the good opening prices were a strong sign the record of $270 a head fetched for lambs at Hamilton in winter might be broken later this season.
About 11,000 lambs and about 6000 sheep were yarded with heavy lambs selling for $180-$222 and trade lambs $140-$175 a head.
Bernie Grant from LMB Livestock, Hamilton said demand from supermarkets and exporters was strong but there were still many other areas where buyers were sourcing lambs.
Other areas were not holding on to lambs because of dry conditions, Mr Grant said.
“We still have a few (lamb) numbers in the south-east of South Australia, northern Victoria and the Riverina,” he said.
Mr Grant said much of western Victoria was still green but another 12-25 millimetres of rain would give producers more ongoing feed.
Michael Kerr of Kerr & Co Livestock Hamilton said prices were a bit cheaper at Hamilton this week than last week because a lot of lambs had come on to the market at Ballarat and Bendigo this week.
Supply was also to be boosted by a yarding of 70,000 lambs at Wagga, Mr Kerr said.
He said the lambs yarded at Hamilton on Wednesday were immature and did not have the weights of the animals that would be yarded at Hamilton in 2-3 weeks time.
But the lambs sold on Wednesday were “sappy” with a lot of sheen in their coats, Mr Kerr said.
He said some western Victorian lamb producers were concerned about possible dry conditions ahead and were considering selling earlier than usual.
He forecast the record lamb price at Hamilton could be surpassed in late November or early December when “a lot of the northern lambs are getting very scarce.”
“When we get big yards (at Hamilton), a lot of the northern buyers will be down to buy them,” Mr Kerr said.
The strong demand for lamb is underpinned by a 12 per cent increase in Australia’s lamb exports between January and August to a record 183,000 tonnes shipped weight (swt).
Mutton shipments have also surged 25 per cent to 105,000 tonnes swt.
The unit value of Australian lamb exports for the year-to-July reached new record highs at A$8.00/kg, and was mirrored in mutton, which climbed to A$5.88/kg for the same period.
The biggest importer of Australian sheep meat in the 12 months to September was China.
