THERE is little doubt that the livestock industry breeds rumours at a rate of knots, making Jamaican Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt look absolutely pedestrian.
Sometimes these rumours even turn out to be true.
This week at Dublin, the usual culprits were in fine form.
Prices, as normal, were the main talking point. Breeding ewe prices in particular seemed to be at the forefront of people's minds.
I'll keep identities under wraps to avoid embarrassing some proponents of the more fanciful deals on offer, according to the rumour mill.
One agent sidled up to me on Tuesday and asked whether I knew of anybody who was looking for a line of sound-mouth ewes running with White Suffolk rams.
I asked the appropriate questions: when they were shorn and how much?
Recently shorn and $75 was the reply; they sounded cheap until I asked the crucial question: when did the rams go in? Last week, I was told.
Another agent reportedly had a very high opinion of some young Merino ewes he was trying to hawk around the market, but $190 on-property may have just been a bit ambitious, even with the forecast of a bright future for sheep meat.
One of the funniest topics with the widest range of definite opinions is the available slaughter space for lambs at the various lamb export works in SA.
I've been assured that Murray Bridge and Bordertown are either full or scratching for numbers; these opposing views were expressed by agents, vendors and even a couple of buyers. But the truth is that nobody knows outside of the companies involved - and they're not telling.
They may occasionally leak a morsel of information, but it is more likely to be a bit of propaganda or a tool to try to maintain or slow numbers.
The rumour mill is not confined to the lamb market. Cattle markets are a hotbed of opinion and saleyard predictions of numbers available and where prices are headed vary wildly.
There has been persistent rumours that any form of manufacturing beef - bulls, cows or steers - will be tipping over the $3 a kilogram liveweight mark by mid-2015.
There may be some substance to this theory with the national herd being decimated with high female slaughter rates because of the prolonged drought in Qld and parts of NSW.
The idea that secondhand bulls and cows could be worth more than their progeny is a bit difficult to grasp. Young cattle prices are already languishing and the sight of yearling heifers selling for prices 20 cents/kg less than cows is a disturbing trend.
If you wonder why, you're not alone.
Some of the answer could lie in the fact, fiction or fallacy that Australian beef accounts for one in four of every hamburger that McDonald's sells, and they are selling about 1 billion every week.
This little bit of trivia comes from a fairly reliable source so, I'm inclined to give it some credence. It would go some way to explaining the surge in manufacturing beef prices.
Speculation about upcoming weaner sales is rife and, again, the whole spectrum of scenarios from boom to disaster can be heard as saleyard pundits pontificate with a degree of certainty that is borne from complete ignorance.
The only certainty is that nobody is certain of the outcome.
So if you're at a market and somebody gives you the good oil, take it with a large grain of salt, especially if it's that bloody market reporter!
* Full report in Stock Journal, September 11, 2014 issue.
