SOUTHERN Australia's good season could see the Australian record price for lamb of $192.60 tumble this winter.
Already the price is under threat, with a NSW producer setting a new state record of $191 for lambs at Cowra last week.
With good rain tightening supply and adding to feed banks, the Australian record of $192.60 could be broken.
Record lamb prices have also been posted at Ballarat ($184.60) and Horsham ($185.60) this week.
Rates were $2 to $5 dearer on the previous week at Ballarat and $3 to $6 dearer at Horsham.
But many industry analysts believe the bumper lamb prices of the past few weeks may have already flushed out most of the heavy lambs, meaning the record could stand.
A swag of heavy lambs has come on to the market this autumn, thanks to the better seasons and low grain prices.
May yardings of heavy lambs (over 26kg carcass weight) were 150 per cent higher than at the same time last year, with 54,000 head sold through NLRS-reported markets.
Of these, 31,000 were sold in NSW saleyards, but Victorian producers doubled the number of heavy lambs sold in May.
Heavy lambs averaged $150 in May, 7 per cent more than last year.
In the past week, lambs have sold up to $187 at Griffith and $185 at Forbes, while the new NSW record was set at Cowra late last week, for a pen of lambs which had an estimated carcass weight of 39kg.
Bendigo's market on Monday included a pen that made $174, but even this was big money, given the lambs were 32kg carcass weight.
National Livestock Reporting Service analyst Robert Millner said the big prices were ``purely a reflection of the mild season and the good rains''.
"The lambs that are making this big money have grown big, have the weight on them and so are making more dollars a head," he said.
Mr Millner was unwilling to speculate whether the Australian record price for lamb would be beaten this year.
"I am not game enough to say it will get beaten, but if it doesn't, it will get close to being beaten," he said.
Bendigo agent Kevin Stratton for Ellis Nuttal and Co said there was only a certain (upper) price processors could pay.
"Certainly numbers are a problem (a shortage), but the prices have been so good for so long that there are not that many heavy lambs left in the system."
At Ballarat, it was the increased proportion of heavy and extra heavy lambs offered in the yarding of 24,000 head that pushed the market to a new high, Rob Huntington of the National Livestock Reporting Service said.
At Horsham, Paul Christopher of the Horsham Regional Livestock Exchange put the dearer trends down to reduced lamb supply (numbers slipped about 3500 head to 7800).
The Australian record price of $192.10 was set in June 2004, at Bendigo.
The price was paid for a pen of 37 lambs, which had an estimated carcass weight of 38kg. This translated to 440c/kg carcass weight, when the skin value of $25 was taken into account.
Records were also broken in the sheep pens at Horsham when bidding reached $151.60 for a pen of heavy wethers with an estimated dressed weight of 35 kilograms, Mr Christopher said.
