A PEN of Santa Gertrudis-Charolais cross steers has taken out top honours at the Coolabunia weaner sale on Thursday before going on to sell for 598 cents a kilogram, or $2093 a head.
The steers were entered by Danny and Margaret Hoogstraten, Eddington, Goomeri, and made up part of the overall yarding of 1270 head assembled for the feature sale near Kingaroy.
Edging out the champion pen of weaner heifers, which was a draft of Simmental-cross heifers entered by local producer Geoff Patterson, the victory helped the Hoogstraten's go one better than their second-place finish at last year's sale.
"It's really pleasing to go one better this year," Mr Hoogstraten told the Queensland Country Life.
"They are nine-month old heifers that weighed about 330kg on average before they left our place to come to the sale.
"We would have liked to wean them a little bit earlier than we eventually did, but with the way the season has been going it was what we had to do.
"I think this year's offering is probably slightly lighter than last year, but it is pleasing to see them do well again."
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Aussie Land and Livestock stock agent James Bredhauer, Kingaroy, said most steers sold from 500c/kg to 688c/kg, but there was a lot of variation in prices.
"It was a pretty successful day even though the market is coming back everywhere and we seemed to hold our ground fairly well today [Thursday]," Mr Bredhauer said.
"The prettier types of cattle started to see some of those discounts apply to them, which is normally the case when the market starts to change direction a bit.
"The auctioneers were working pretty hard because a lot of those steers were actually being taken at a dollar higher than what their starting price was.
"I think that is a bit of an indication about where the market is, but the steers still sold to a top of 700c/kg.
"Most of the trader steers were in that 560c/kg to 680c/kg range to average nearly 600c/kg at 599c/kg."
Mr Bredhauer said it was a similar story in the heifer category, which was spurred on by a strong showing of local buyers.
"There was a great roll up of heifers there and they traded in that 485c/kg to 560c/kg range to average 516c/kg," he said.
"A fair few of the heifers in that category had a fair bit of weight in them and were around that light-feeder class type of heifer.
"There was a lot of support for those types of heifers with a bit of frame and condition on them.
"Some of the comments were that our heifer job was significantly dearer than some of the other major selling centres, so we are pretty happy about that."
The sale was conducted by Aussie Land and Livestock, Kingaroy.
Results:
Grand champion pen of weaners: Hoogstratton family.
Reserve Champion pen of weaners: Geoff Patterson.
Best pen of replacement heifers: Margie Lee Madigan.
Champion pen of weaner steers: Hoogstratton family.
Reserve champion pen of weaner steers: Trousdell Investments.
Third place pen of weaner steers: M and B Lord.
Champion pen of weaner heifers: Geoff Patterson.
Reserve champion pen of weaner heifers: Sheean Family.
Third place pen of weaner heifers: M and B Lord.
Best pen of infused Santa Gertrudis weaners: Hoogstratton family.
Best pen of infused Angus-Brangus weaners: Trousdell Investments.
Best pen of infused Limousin weaners: Garth Birrer.
Best pen of infused Charolais weaners: M and B Lord.
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
