LAMBS made $6 a kilogram carcaseweight in June but now - suddenly - there is a good amount of quality crossbreds about so prices have come down.
If the Bendigo, Vic, sale on August 25, or Dublin on August 26, are any sort of gauge, and if producers can get a guaranteed on-the-hooks price of $4.80/kg, they should grab it with both hands.
The disturbing part of the rapid price fall is that it is only August. There are still relatively few sucker lambs on the market.
Bendigo had an estimated 13,000 head this week. Many of these were immature crossbreds and Merinos out of the Riverina area that weren't suitable for trade or processor buyers.
Dublin's smaller yarding of 8000 would have contained about 65 per cent new season lambs so it's not as if there is any sort of glut to blame - just yet.
You would think that, at this time of year - considering the relatively small numbers available - there would be some sense of urgency amongst trade and processor buyers to secure their share of the good lambs available.
If you get to attend every Dublin sale as I do, it's fairly easy to recognise the mood of the buyers and I reckon that, as a group, they are displaying worrying traits.
There is no sense of urgency, no sniping, no cross words, just a gentlemanly procession of one bid pens and, at times, an air of indifference as to whether they get a pen or not.
One very prominent operator never bought a lamb two sales ago at Dublin.
The buyer explained to me that the abattoir facility was booked solid for a month and he couldn't have lambs hanging around in their lairages losing weight.
Fair enough.
Recently, the same buyer bought a few token pens that would have filled four decks but wouldn't have stretched to a B-double load.
It seems that his company didn't really need the lambs, but always need to keep the name at the forefront - so the opposition doesn't gain any advantage in the marketplace.
In my job, as market reporter, it is easy to empathise with producers. I follow behind the auctioneer and enter all of the relevant information in my little computer: fat score, estimated dressed weight, skin value, etcetera.
The trap is that there are times when I can't believe the prices that I'm hearing.
* Full report in Stock Journal, August 28, 2014 issue.
