Market prices stabilized at Dalby’s cattle sale on Wednesday as rain resulted in a smaller than expected yarding.
Only 2794 head were penned with early trucked cattle from drought impacted areas dominating the yarding. A total of 965 head were from the local district and the remaining 1829 head were trucked from parts of western Queensland including Mt Isa and also northern New South Wales and South Australia.
Cattle breeder Owen Hams, Cooly, St George, who sold weaner cattle at the sale, said the patchy rainfall will help, but widespread wet weather is still needed to dramatically improve conditions for cattle producers.
“It will be a benefit in the short-term and I hope more rain eventuates from the predictions over the next week,” Mr Hams said.
The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting wet weather to continue until the end of this week and possible be more widespread across Queensland.
“Getting rain has made me a lot happier going into winter because we only had some average, dry feed before this wet weather change,” Mr Hams said.
“This rain will boost our winter weaning weights and in the short-term will provide slighter higher cattle prices for those producers having to sell out of dry areas.”
Elders Dalby branch manager Ashley Lovedale said cattle prices remained similar to last week during the Dalby sale, with one restocker providing some more competition for medium weight steers that were previously going to feedlot buyers and store cows that were usual selling to processors.
“The local rain has brought more assurance to producer’s oats crop planting across the district,” Mr Lovedale said.
“We have to remember it’s only rained in half of Queensland, so unless more widespread rainfall happens we are still going to see good numbers of western cattle coming forward.”
Mr Lovedale noted the rain had clearly declined Dalby’s yarding numbers and given the market a short-term boost of around 5c/kg across the board, except for heavy cows to processors that remained similar in price to last week.
We have to remember it’s only rained in half of Queensland, so unless more widespread rainfall happens we are still going to see good numbers of western cattle coming forward.
- Ashley Lovedale, Elders, Dalby
“With colder weather on the way, the rain isn’t going to grow a large bulk of feed for producers but an improved oats crop planting outlook may provide agistment opportunities for cattle to be moved from dry western Queensland areas,” he said.
The rain has brought both hope and concern for feedlot buyer Ben Maher, Rogers Creek Feedlot who was pleased the wet weather across the Darling Downs could steady rising feed grain prices, but was worried by slight feeder weight cattle price rises at the Dalby sale.