WHEN you stand in saleyards, conversation can wander in many different directions.
Apart from Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge's indiscretion on Port Adelaide's Chad Wingard, the main topic on Tuesday was, of course, lamb prices.
Being a Hawthorn supporter, I was very happy when Livestock Markets Ltd manager Andrew Lepley diverted the conversation by posing the big question: are sucker lambs the dearest on record?
As we race headlong into September and, in theory, the time when lamb numbers escalate, it seems timely to go back through some recent records to find the truth of the matter.
Lamb prices really got steam up in the autumn of 2010, when crossbred lambs were selling for up to $175 and creating records. This translated to strong prices in the spring, when sucker lambs sold up to $148.
January 2011 was the beginning of a summer that lamb producers remember rather fondly, as prices rocketed beyond the $200 barrier, reaching the then-record of $227 in February that year before some degree of sanity returned.
Dublin market information back to 2009 suggests that right through until 2014, $140 was a cracking good price for new season lambs. A more likely price was in the $90-$120 range, with prices a kilogram closer to $4/kg than $5/kg.
Move forward to the spring of 2015 and what a revelation. Despite the spectre of El Nino, near drought conditions in parts of the state and uncertainty surrounding processors' ability to move product overseas, lamb prices are booming.
The best heavy trade lambs at Dublin this week sold from $150 to a market high of $163, and there were many more lighter lambs that comfortably sold beyond the $140 mark.
These lambs achieved prices that have never been visited before at this time of year, and I can only imagine how good the job would be if lamb skin prices reverted to the levels of a couple of years ago.
Good, clean crossbred lamb skins are returning processors about $10, but roughly two years ago the same skins were worth more than $20. Add this to today's prices and you get a price increase somewhere in the 50 cents/kg range.
