An elite muster of lot-feeder buyers stood back in awe as grass-fuelled restockers set a cracking pace at the opening spring store cattle sale in Hamilton yesterday.
Restockers from the south west, central areas and south Gippsland were all extremely keen to replace recently traded cattle, booting steer prices further into unchartered waters, from 360-458c/kg lwt to overall average 425c while heifer sales traded mainly between 360 to 400c/kg.
The highlight of the 1800 head sale was the final offering of Mark Wootten’s Jigsaw Farms spring-drop weaners from Cavendish, located to the north of Hamilton.
Selling almost 800 head of Angus and Black baldy steers and heifers, the Jigsaw Farms steers were sold to a top of 458c/kg lwt (317kg for a pen of 39 Angus) while a main line of 140 Angus steers, 343kg, made 446c/kg to realise $1556/head.
The market was conducted under cloudy skies following a further 15-25mm of rain falling over the southwest of Victoria the night before the sale.