HIGH grain prices and profitable returns early in the season meant loads of cattle were flushed through the system prior to peak selling periods and, with the sector is about to enter one of those, it turns out there are a few other factors at play helping keep yardings higher than expected.
Despite numbers slightly falling away at most major SA selling centres earlier this year, there were more cattle yarded at the Mount Compass saleyards in the past few weeks, despite already reaching its peak numbers at the end of last year.
Pro-Stock Livestock Mount Compass agent Clint Endersby said 1200 cattle were yarded last week, with a further 800 yesterday, and this was "unexpected".
"We have yarded a few hundred more each week for a while now - it was unexpected," he said.
"It has been a prolonged dry spell and high grain prices, so it looks like producers are not holding onto much."
But Mr Endersby thinks it will "catch up" eventually and yardings will reduce in the coming month.
Recently, Mount Gambier saleyard had 488 cattle, while Naracoorte had 698 and the SA Livestock Exchange had 200.
Fluctuating yardings in recent months have been recovered with a couple of weeks of solid yardings at Dublin and it seems processor limitations were the main driver.
Elders Dublin agent Matt Ward said cattle numbers would naturally dry up in the coming months because of early selling but the recent, stable numbers were potentially off the back of stock being left in the paddock.
"Cattle are hitting the saleyards in solid numbers despite we assumed they would be lower," he said.
"But processors have not been slaughtering at the usual rates. They have still not got the staff capacity of pre-COVID and saleyard cattle are not being slaughtered as fast as they generally would be."
Mr Ward said contracted cattle would be slaughtered by processors first and then saleyard cattle.
"That could be the cause of a drop in prices too - the demand has dropped away from processors," he said.
Koonalunda Graziers' Emma Hall, Meningie, runs a cattle operation with her family and is one of many producers who have changed their selling behaviour this season and could be contributing to the larger yardings than expected.
"We have decided to sell cattle in smaller lines, more often, at the Strathalbyn saleyard," she said. "We sold cattle in December last year and we would generally not sell then. And we have more to go in the coming weeks. But it depends on if we have feed - we do not supplementary feed so that changed how long we would hold onto stock for, too."
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Vanessa Binks
I am the Markets Editor and journalist at the Stock Journal. I am based at Nuriootpa in SA's lower north.
I am the Markets Editor and journalist at the Stock Journal. I am based at Nuriootpa in SA's lower north.
