Dalby cattle yarding numbers drop as rain falls

Dalby cattle sale will go ahead on Wednesday with local livestock agents expecting a 4500 to 5000 head yarding.

That’s despite rainfall of up to 75 millimetres across the region on Tuesday.

Currently, 2500 head of cattle have already been yarded at Dalby Saleyards since Sunday.

Dalby’s Eastern Rural livestock manger Peter Bird said mainly local cattle have been pulled-out of the sale due to wet weather conditions preventing truck movements.

“Generally around the region about 30mm to 100mm of rain fell overnight with some good rain of 100mm up towards Kaimkillenbun and 30mm or more out at Tara, plus a further 20mm of rain here in Dalby this morning with about 75mm to 100mm in total,” Mr Bird said.

A 5000 head or less yarding at Dalby Saleyards is in stark contrast to last week’s 7300 head penning of mostly western cattle from drought affected parts of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.

Mr Bird said saleyard prices softened last week due to large supply numbers at both Dalby and Roma cattle sales with prices falling around 10c/kg across the board for steers and heifers.

“The large cattle numbers at Dalby were coming from south west Queensland areas of Cunnamulla, Hungerford and Cameron Corner and northern outback New South Wales border regions with those types of cattle already penned for this week’s sale again,” he said.

But, now Dalby livestock agents are expecting saleyard market prices to be firm or even dearer than last week.

“The rain hasn’t been widespread enough for cattle producers to go crazy buying livestock,” Mr Bird said.

He added a number of cattle producers have paddocks ready for oats crop planting and predicts tractors will be very busy next week, which could result in increased local cattle demand and prices.

“I don’t believe we’re going to see major changes to the market, especially for prime slaughter or feeder weight cattle,” Mr Bird said.

“The biggest price gains are likely to be for young, restocker cattle but how much the grazier can afford to pay is a guessing game.”

Mr Bird predicts young, weaner cattle prices will jump 10 to 15c/kg over the next couple of weeks.

“Beyond that I’m not getting very excited,” he said.