RECENT rain events did little to dampen prices at this week's Warwick sheep sale despite limiting the yarding to 923 head.
Of those, 592 lambs and 330 grown sheep were penned for a packed buying gallery of restockers and processors.
Among the highlights of the first pens sold at Wednesday's sale was a line of Dorper-cross young lambs offered on account of Banbri, St George, which ranged in price from $180 a head to a top of $200/hd.
Overall, the 552 young lambs on offer, ranged in price from $64 to a sale-high $210 to average about $170.
Those prices were stronger than the previous week's average of $142.
Young lambs to the local butcher trade made $160 to average $145 with those to restockers selling to $145 and averaging $133.
Light weight lambs to the butcher trade sold to $170 and averaged $157 with lambs weighing over 20 kilograms to feeder operators selling to $183.
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Of those, ram lambs selling to local processors sold from about $140 to about $175.
It was a similar story in the hogget category as prices for the 143 offered ranged in price from $64 to a $173 high to average about $145.
This week's offering was nearly twice that of last week's and that was reflected in the average price which rose from about $115.
Heavy hoggets to processors made $173 to average $159.
Ewe prices also enjoyed a rise from last week, reaching a top of $150 for the 120 on offer, up from $138, to average $98, up from $72 the week before.
Lighter ewes returning to the paddock averaged $108 and sold to $126, while heavy ewes selling to processors reached $149 and averaged $136.
Wether prices remained firm from the previous week, reaching a similar top of of $145 and average of $131.
However, the yarding of 43, which was slightly down from 47, enjoyed a much better floor in prices with the bottom end of this week's category selling for $130, well up from $70.
High quality heavier wethers in demand from processors sold to $145.
Rounding Wednesday's sale was a small offering of nine rams, which ranged from $53 to $126 to average about $115.
The yarding was up from the one ram that sold at last week's sale for $130.
Also among the highlights of Wednesday's sale was the first prime lamb competition hosted by the Warwick stock agents.
Judging on the hoof was conducted before the start of the selling with the on-the-hook portion of the competition to be held on Friday at W. Carey and Sons.
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.
