On The Land
19 October, 2022
Prices hold at Mareeba sale
WITH just nine more sales scheduled before the Mareeba yards close down for the Christmas break, northern cattle prices continued to hold last week, in contrast to the state-wide trend.
November and December are historically the lowest priced months of the cattle selling year and while the Queensland Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) has dipped just under 30 points to 1002.94 since early September, prices rose 5-10 cents across all categories in Mareeba.
Most cattle buyers were present, including representatives from JBS Australia, Bos Trading, Cairns Bulk Meats, Elders Townsville and Teys, Lakes Creek. Strong southern buyer support continued in the form of Shannon Coombs and Casino's Northern River Meats.
The best export boat order prices of the year have just hit the market and Central Queensland's Ryan Olive was operating on behalf of Perth-based Live-stock Shipping Services (LSS), adding competition to the local market. Several more boats are expected before the end of the year, which should continue to underpin the solid market.
Since the influx of the northern bulls and mickeys that began at the start of September, Mareeba has been experiencing a run of yardings in the 1500 to 2000 head range, necessitating second round yard refills and making long days for agents and buyers.
Queensland Rural's Luke Hickmott said buyers could expect a lot more Peninsula bulls as northerners got into their final clean up before the wet and that the continued flow of cattle numbers generally could cause an extension to the selling year, but he believed prices would hold.
A total of 1586 head were yarded at last week's Mareeba sale, including nine head sold at open auction to record an overall average improvement of four cents per kilo across the sale. The 472 prime cattle included 64 bullocks and 242 mainly Peninsula bulls and 856 stores.
The prime cattle came from Cape York, the Gulf country, Georgetown, the Eastern Coastal area and the local Tablelands and consisted of some quality pens of ox, runs of cows and bulls and a few heifers.
Bullocks sold on account of R & R White topped the sale at 390.2c/kg to weigh 632.5kg and return an average of $2,468.02 per head.
The top pen of cows sold for 350.2c/kg, weighed 498kg and returned $1745.16 per head and the best pen of trade heifers offered by JM & PL Gordon sold for 340c/kg, weighed 355kg and returned $$1207/hd.
Store lines totalled 930 head and were comprised of mainly Brahman lines with a small number of softer breed cattle, including some quality steers and heifers on offer.
A pen of 28 steers sold on account of R & R White made 540.2c/kg, weighed 175kg to realise $1102.91/head, while a pen of 7 of Brad Meldrum's heifers made 422.2c/kg, weighed 209kg to return $880.59 per head and cows and calves sold on account of Ironbark North returned $800 per unit.
The 419 bulls on offer aver-aged 265.8c/kg to top at 562.2; the 176 cows averaged 287.2 c/kg to reach a top of 356.2 and a run of 256 head of 300- 500kg mickeys of varying quality, sold to a top of 448.2c/kg to average 253.6c/kg.
