UPDATE: LAMB producers banking on a price turnaround today will be disappointed.
Wagga Wagga’s benchmark market, which largely sets the tone for the coming week’s sale, was up to $15 cheaper today as lamb rates slipped below 300c/kg.
The offering of 32,600, swelled from numbers which could not make the saleyards last week because of rain, was hammered.
Buyers were there – according to National Livestock Reporting Services’s Leann Dax – but not all major supermarkets were buying.
The absence of that support drove rates up to $15 cheaper, with new season’s lambs making 297-321c/kg carcass weight.
Light lambs suitable for export sold to keep competition, but even still, dropped by between $7-$14.
The best the market could muster was $107.60 for a pen of export lambs weighing an estimated 28kg. This was 339c/kg and some lambs did sell above 400c/kg in isolated sales.
But the bulk of the offering made less, dragging the average rate paid for suckers at Wagga Wagga today to just 299c/kg.
Wagga Wagga’s tough sale pulled the eastern states lamb indicators back too.
Lambs suitable to process have fallen between 30-36c/kg in the past week.
