LACK of southern buyers kept the lid on first cross ewes at Barellan's feature sale today.
Even with no Victorian competition, young first cross ewes still sold to $170 while scanned in lamb four-year-olds brought the sale's top price of $173.
Most pre-sale expectations were of a hot, even extreme market especially with the high trade in values for older ewes and the buoyant lamb market.
Observers after the sale thought prices could have been $10-$15 higher. It meant buyers left happy, but few vendors were complaining either.
The sale's top young ewe price of $170 was paid for the pen judged the best presented on the day, a line of 232 head, March 2009 drop, October shorn and sold by McDonald Farming, Barellan.
The ewes sold to a Crookwell, NSW, buyer.
It was the second year in a row that the McDonald's have topped the sale, with their young ewes making $142 last year.
Most of the bigger and heavier lines of young first cross ewes, rising one year, made from $145 to $156, while slightly younger or smaller lines made from $130-$145.
Vendor Keith Gordon sold 231 young ewes for $150 and another 218 for $146 and said he was "happy enough" with the prices.
Several meat buyers were in attendance but no young ewes were bought by the trade, a fact that pleased many of the producers and vendors.
The sale's top price of $173 was paid by an Albury agent for one of only two pens of joined first cross ewes.
The price was paid for a line of four-year-old breeders, 100 per cent scanned in lamb to Poll Dorset rams, sold by the Mickan family, Barellan.
The same vendors also sold a line of five-year-olds, same description, for $152 to the same buyer.
Buyers came from Wagga Wagga, Goulburn, Coleambally, Cootamundra, Griffith, Grong Grong, Ungarie and Albury.
