MICHAEL, Janet and Simon Allen's Warrawee Park off-shears offering at Keith on Wednesday last week, again set benchmark prices for the South East off-shears sales.
Regular top prices and State records have come from this sale in the past, and this year was no exception.
While the influx of Western Australian ewes in the past two-months has taken the real heat out of prices, because of a greater supply, expectations of a good result at Warrawee Park remained.
No record-equalling of the South Australian record of $261 was expected, but an opening bid of $200 for the Allen family's 500 under 1.5-year-old ewes certainly kicked the sale off on a positive note.
They were eventually knocked down by Elders auctioneer Steve Doecke at $226 to Denis Manhood Livestock Millicent's Denis Manhood, and 400 went to Pat Lawlor, Marjon Park, Furner, a long-time buyer of these MN3 Johnes-accredited ewes that were very well grown and presented.
The other 100 were taken by Mr Manhood's other client Chris Skeer & Co. The 82 seconds of this drop went at $164 to Elders Coonalpyn a/c Weckert. The 582 averaged $217.26.
The 500 Warrawee Park 5.5-year-old ewes, also carrying the Johnes MN3 rating, went at $142 to Ross Johns, buying through Elders Tintinara, taking a run of 100, Elders Coonalpyn for 100, and Elders Minlaton for 200 bid $140 for further runs and Landmark Lameroo picked up the last 100 at $138.
The Warrawee Park sale concluded with 1262 wether lambs, which made up 54 per cent of the overall offering.
For animal health reasons, these lambs had some treatments within the withholding period for slaughter, so the meat trade buyers were not able to operate.
They topped at $90 paid by TDC Penola agent Peter DeGaris, buying for the Penola Lions Club and taking 520 of them.
PPH&S agent Richard Harvey paid $86 for a draft of 560 wether lambs, and TDC Penola took the last run of 182 for another client. The 1262 averaged $86.78.
* Extract from a full report in Stock Journal, October 28 issue.