PRICES improved by a few cents per kilogram for select lines of Angus steer calves at Hamilton today.
The sale, held by Elders and Landmark, recorded a top dollar a head price of $738 for Bob and Barbara Burgin’s lead pen of steers that were the heaviest in the yarding at 415kg and sold for 178c/kg liveweight.
While the dollar a head return is below yesterday’s top result at Hamilton, prices for some of the heavier drafts of steers were judged to be a few cents dearer in liveweight terms.
An example of this was EU steers in the opening laneway of calves that sold for up to 188c/kg liveweight for 382kg, returning $718 a head.
While later in the sale a feature line of 121 Angus steers from vendor Bundoran, average weight 319kg, sold for 191c/kg – the highest c/kg price of the day.
Although in dollar per head terms it equated to just over $600.
Overall, the market did tend to mirror the trends recorded in the opening Hamilton sale, in that the heavier calves (350kg) plus made the best money of 178c to 188c/kg thanks to on-going buying from three main feedlot buyers – T&R Pastoral, Teys Bros and Hopkins River.
But once again there was no price premiums for the general run of lighter calves, and indeed late in the sale the market, to use the words of one breeder, “fizzeled’’ out and steers weighing less than 300kg struggled to sell in the 170c to 178c/kg range.
The Weekly Times observed some plainer steers, average weight 290kg, selling for down to 165c/kg.
In a repeat performance the volume buyers continued to be the Sundown Pastoral company from northern NSW, the feedlots, and South Gippsland restockers.
