Crystal ball fails test run

I am not sure which, but by popular request I have dusted it off and gazed into the future to see what spring may bring.

I do this with some trepidation, because I sneaked the old glass ball out after the Aussies lost the first Ashes test match at Trent Bridge, and it indicated that Australia's woes were at an end ­- and that the Poms would be demolished in all subsequent matches.

This prediction, as it turns out, was slightly off the mark, but I'll just put that down to lack of use. I am confident that now the ball has had sufficient time to acclimatise, it will be spot-on with its predictions.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who lives in South Australia that we are having a winter that has so far exceeded anything we saw in the preceding decade.

Rain and more rain has been the order of the day. Feed supplies and stock water - barring disasters - look to be secure for the remainder of the year, and for the purpose of this exercise I am going to assume that come spring and early summer, stock will be offered in the markets in prime condition.

The first thing to test the mettle of buyers, the resilience of export markets, and the effect of the lower $A, will be new-season crossbred lamb sales. During the past month some early examples of new-season lambs have been offered at Dublin and, as is usually the case, local wholesalers keenly secured them at prices up to $135.

Good luck to those who have been able to present these lambs heavy enough and fresh enough to attract these prices, but it would be a real optimist who would suggest that these are benchmark values for September and October.

We will not have to wait very long to gain some insight into where sucker lamb prices are heading.

I have devoted a lot of time to researching the supply of early lambs, particularly those supplied from the Victorian Mallee. The truth is that I ran into Walpeup, Vic, lamb producer Rory O'Shaugnessy in the pub one night.

Walpeup is near Ouyen and is having a very nice season - Rory confidently related that their lambs would be well under way in a fortnight.

This traditionally early area will have lambs with plenty of weight and buyers will be swift to take advantage of the good quality. Price expectations are varied, but it seems that most lamb producers have little confidence that prices will be significantly improved from 2012.

Anyway, I gave the crystal ball the go-ahead to forecast the fate of cattle producers for the remainder of the year - and the bloody thing glazed over.

*Full report in Stock Journal, July 25 issue, 2013.