Rain helps build optimism in market

A WET past few weeks has brought relief for local vendors and buyers as the cattle market begins to rise after a dry March period. Spirits were high at last Friday's store sale at the Wangaratta Livestock Selling Complex, where steers topped at 487c/kg and heifers at 411c/kg. Corcoran Parker cattle agent Reiley Murtagh said the rain over the past three weeks alone has bumped average prices up around $100 per head from last month. "People were pretty reluctant to be buying because we really hadn't had a season opening bit of rain," he said. "Two weeks ago we had a pretty big rain event spread across the North East and it has sort of just kicked everyone into gear. "They're starting to get crop in, grass is starting to grow everywhere, so it'll just keep the market pretty solid if not a bit better going forward." Milawa cattle producer Darryn Hourigan and daughter Ellie brought along 28 head of black Angus steers, at an average weight of 347kg, to sell at Friday's sale in Wangaratta. Mr Hourigan said after a slow start to the year, the recent rain over the last couple of weeks has brought some relief and a positive outlook going into winter. "We've got plenty of stock around; we're just unloading a few to test the market, see how it's going," he said. Mr Hourigan had a return of $1380 per head at the sale, which he said was reasonable considering where the current market prices sit. "It has corrected, but probably overcorrected a little bit, hopefully it can find a happy medium but we all knew it would come back from that high of last year," he said. "When it's going to find that middle ground I don't know. "But it's a fantastic start to the autumn; hopefully it continues on, we have a nice autumn break and have plenty of feed going into winter." Mr Murtagh said over the next month he expects the market to start to rise. "We'll start to see less fat cattle through the system now that they've got a bit of rain...it means people can hold cattle and finish them off a bit better," he said. "It should mean that prices come up a bit." Wangaratta's next monthly store sale will be held on May 5, at the new starting time of 9am.

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