DESPITE a tumultuous 2014, the selling year finished on a high for beef, sheep and lambs, setting up a good start for 2015 - so livestock producers should relish the good prospects that the new year should bring.
Monday's cattle sale was little short of a revelation. As usual the heavy bulls were sold first and bulls that were recently making $1.40 a kilogram to $1.50/kg suddenly made $1.70/kg - just an aberration? Apparently not, because as we moved on to the young cattle, rates continued with similar promise.
A fair sprinkling of yearling bulls featured throughout the yarding, in which rates of about $1.30-$1.40/kg are normally pretty good crack. Not on Monday - $1.60-$1.80/kg suddenly became the norm.
Heavyweight grown steer prices have struggled to attain anywhere near the value that similar beasts fetch at markets in the South East. Not this week - 600kg steers selling up to $1.80/kg is not a bad return in anybody's language.
Feeder buyers did not want to be left out, and a contingent of small ethnic butchers were prominent, purchasing numbers that led people to believe that they must read the back page of the Stock Journal and decided to make my prophesy come true.
Just to top a very good day for vendors, processors bid freely on cows, lifting rates 12-20c/kg.
The lamb market has accelerated into territory not seen before Christmas in recent years, perhaps into a price bracket never seen before at any time.
Who would imagine that lambs would make up to $167 a fortnight before Christmas. A week ago lambs were sneaking up to $6/kg, and if nothing else it excited a whole bevy of agents and cropping cockies into investing in lightweight crossbred lambs on a large scale. Even this week's price adjustment did not seem to dampen their buying ardour.
I know there are some people who doubt the accuracy of my market reports, but it is a bit embarrassing when the National Livestock Reporting Service, Sydney head office rings and enquires whether or not ultra-lightweight crossbred lambs really made better than $10/kg carcaseweight. It is hard to explain how some very aggressive bidding from feeders can result in some purchases that from the outside appear to be somewhat outrageous. I hope that the purchasers of these lambs get out of them all right but sometimes it's hard to imagine how.
On the opposite side of the coin are the buyers who are purchasing lambs to feed-on and are paying $95 to $110. Will lamb prices get to $6/kgcw? What if there is a repeat of a couple of years ago, when some feeders got burnt and most got at least mildly singed when lamb prices failed to reach the heady heights that the experts predicted. I think it was only three years ago that I was one of many who blithely paid $80-$100 for lightweight stores in anticipation of returning an average of about $170, only to find that $120 in April was a pretty good price. As they say, you live and learn, or maybe for people like me we only live.
I am an optimist. For better or worse, I believe that things can only get better. I am now working on the theory that if the tail-end of 2014 was so very good, then how good will the beginning of 2015 be? Along with a great many others, I will be disappointed if my optimism is unfounded.
So to all the livestock community I hope that Christmas and the new year delivers all the gifts nature endows. Health and happiness to all!