Southern comfort for sheep producers

The Detail

Victorian sale yards must be doing something right by sheep producers as they are continuing to attract sheep and lamb volumes with throughput levels holding above the seasonal average pattern since the Australia day lull. Lamb yarding levels for the week ending 5th March in Victoria gained 8% on the week prior to see 75,283 lambs presented.

This represents throughout levels that are 31% above the five-year trend for this week in the season. Since the Australia day lull in trade Victorian lamb volumes have averaged over 76,000 head per week and have been running 35% above the average weekly seasonal pattern.

Victorian sheep yarding has been displaying a similar robustness since the Australia day shortened trading week with average weekly throughput of a little over 33,500 head. The five-year pattern for this time in the season shows sheep numbers average around 27,600 a week, which puts Victorian sheep throughput 21% ahead of the seasonal pattern. While this is a healthy volume of sheep it is below the 2020 yarding levels for the same time frame which were averaging over 39,100 head, or 42% above the seasonal trend.

In contrast, NSW sheep yarding levels have been running 36% under the average seasonal pattern since the Australia day hiatus. Meanwhile, average weekly lamb yarding inn NSW is 5% behind the five-year seasonal pattern over the same time horizon.

Despite the softer NSW sheep and lamb volumes the total east coast are being underpinned by the strong Victorian showing. East coast lamb throughput was reported at 192,524 head for the week ending 5th March, 8% higher than the week prior and 9% ahead of the five-year average for this week in the season.

East coast sheep volumes came in at 71,656 for the week ending 5th March. While this was a solid 9% lift on the week prior it wasn’t enough to get throughput above the average pattern, with weekly volumes sitting 8% under the average trend for this time in the year.