The change of season has seen a sharp drop in finished lamb prices with buying generally cheaper across the board since early March.
The Eastern States Trade Lamb Indicator has continuing its downward trajectory, losing another 33 cents over this week to settle at 663c/kg cwt.
The West didn't fare any better, in fact, worse, dropping 67 cents on the week to 490c/kg cwt.
That's a 26 per cent or 173 cent discount in WA for trade lambs, compared to the east.
The market conditions are in line with Meat and Livestock Australia's most recent Sheep Producers Intentions Pulse survey which showed 55pc of producers were expecting to increase their lamb sales in the first half of 2023.
Glen Keast is a livestock agent with Nutrien Ag Solutions in the mid north of South Australia. He's aware of excess lamb numbers in the industry.
"At Bordertown a lot of Victorian and NSW lambs are being processed through JBS Foods," Mr Keast said.
"In my area around Riverton, I'm definitely aware of extra lambs around.
"I think producers held them back last year as they didn't grow well in the cold and wet and they tended to be wormy which hasn't been an issue here for years.
"I expect the lambs will run out in four to six weeks which is pretty normal.
"There's a lot of lambs out there but producers have to be prepared to lock them up and feed them for good returns."
However, Andrew Lepley, manager of the South Australian Livestock Exchange at Dublin said an influx of lambs was not something he had experienced in "his patch".
"We aren't seeing any difference with lambs at all, it's the same as normal," he said.
"The only extra lambs we are seeing are store Merino lambs which are going for anything between $40 and $140."
In more recent markets heavy lambs also continued the cheaper trend in all states.
The National Heavy Lamb Indicator lost 33c over the prior week to settle at 712c/kg cwt.
Mercado analysts report that the heavy lamb indicator has fallen just under 10pc since the start of March and is as low as we've seen since September 2022.
Prices picked up slightly in latest market figures, sitting at 736c/kg cwt.
This trend also occurred last year with heavy lamb prices falling through until April from where they steadied, before rallying into winter.
Read More
The store lamb market has also pushed below the recent trading range.
In Victoria, restocker lamb prices have moved 121c lower playing catchup to recent falls in NSW and ending at 526c/kg cwt.
In both NSW and Tasmania restocker lambs were at 541c this week.
Light lamb numbers were back slightly across the country in recent markets and demand was very mixed.
Mutton is again bumping around the 300c mark, with the National Mutton Indicator this week sitting at 314.93c/kg cwt.
A lift in saleyard throughput pushed prices lower, with this week Ballarat making up just over 20pc of the saleyard mutton offering.
Griffith topped the mutton market with the top average price of $376.21.
Mercado analysts said east coast lamb slaughter was 3.5pc above the five-year average for the first nine weeks of 2023, and 11pc above the same period last year.
While slaughter throughput for the last 12 weeks of 2022 was also up (15pc on the year prior and 3pc on the five-year average), total lamb slaughter for the year was still below the pre-drought levels of 2017/18.
Over the last few weeks, national lamb slaughter has been tracking at close to 2022 levels.
In the east, the last four weeks totalled 7pc more lambs processed than the same time in 2022.
But it's sheep numbers that are now taking up much more kill space.
East coast sheep slaughter was 31pc higher over the last four reported weeks than at the same time last year.
