Cattle market fires back to life

Leading the charge was the Roma store sale, where 3000 head sold on Tuesday.

Light steers hit an impressive 288c/kg, while feeder steers in the 400-550kg range topped at 258c and averaged 229c.

Roma Saleyards manager Terry Hyland said the prices reflected the presence of a 'very strong' panel of buyers and prospective buyers.

"The yarding certainly reflected the weather," Mr Hyland said.

"We've had quite a bit of rain over the past few weeks, but once again it's been patchy, with some areas having very good rain and others unfortunate to miss out."

Mr Hyland said the patchy rain had left producers trying to gauge the future value of their cattle, with people missing out looking to offload cattle in the next couple of weeks.

"Generally speaking, the values have risen by 60c to 80c on pre-Christmas prices.

"The simple fact is, trying to restock will be very difficult at these rates, but sellers were very happy at the sale today.

"It's going to be tough going for people until it settles down a bit and we can see where we're going."

Buyers at Biggenden were more than impressed with the line-up of cattle on offer, with Burnett Livestock and Realty's Stephanie Whitaker adding the positive market was giving producers something to smile about.

"This is unprecedented," Mrs Whitaker said.

"We've been here eight years and we've never had a sale average like that for a meatworks and store sale."

Agents clocked a 202c average across the sale at the beginning of the week, the first for the year.

"It's so good to see people happy - even the buyers were happy."

Mrs Whitaker said the past 18 months had taken a toll on cattle producers across the state, with many left shy about predicting the future for the market.

"The impression I got from some of the buyers was that it could go up a bit, but hopefully it won't drop away suddenly anytime soon."

A downpour of rain hailed the end of the sale, with the local yard recording 25mm over the past fortnight.

"It hasn't been a huge amount but we had some great rain in December, and there's been some good grass growth and it's coming to seed, but people are still waiting for run-off rain. Ideally, it would be great to see some good rain and that, in turn, will keep the prices up.

Mrs Whitaker said now was the perfect opportunity for people, if they had cattle they wanted to sell, to lighten their load at local sales and begin to recover their paddocks.

Sales will continue to resume across Queensland throughout next week, with high numbers of cattle expected at the Emerald prime and store sale today.