Tougher times trigger higher numbers

CLIVE and Dianne Anderson from Benambra were selling for the first time at Wangaratta with about 90 Hereford and Angus cattle, offloading due to the drought conditions in the area. They decided to sell at Wangaratta on Thursday because it was the last good sale before winter, as they would be unable to drive over Mt Hotham once the cold weather and snowfalls hit. “It’s real bad at the moment and going into winter we’ve got to reduce numbers now," Mr Anderson said. “We always sell at the High Country sales and we run about 700 breeders and we retain all our younger cattle that are unsuitable for the market and we’ll fatten them and send them to JBS. “These are all surplus to what we’ve got at the moment because it’s so dry.” The Andersons sold 14 Angus steers weighing an average of 235kg for $965/hd ($4.10/kg), and 12 Angus heifers at 485kg/avg for $1650/hd ($3.40). Prior to the sale, AWN livestock agent Ryan Hussey said given the countryside in the North East prices have been fairly good, with steers either side of $4/kg and heifers between late $2.80-$3.70/kg. The footnote was that this depends on weights, quality and the bloodlines. “Any cattle with weight 380-400kg and heavier are maintaining a bit of a rate because of your feeder cattle entry weights," he said. “You’re finding people selling heavy cattle but don’t have the feed in the paddock, and they’re not jumping in to buy the volume of the cattle that are coming forward in these lighter ones."

Tougher times trigger higher numbers

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