“Spirited bidding” has pushed the national lamb price to a new record at a regional New South Wales saleyard today.
A pen of 55 second-cross lambs sold to $479.50/head at Griffith, but agents say this still may not be the top of the market.
The lamb price has been slowly climbing, with records nearly a weekly occurrence at saleyards across the country since late May.
“You don’t sell the lambs to get the records, but they did deserve it. They were amazing lambs,” agent Wayne Spencer said.
“They weighed an average of 92 kilos liveweight, so that’s an estimated dress weight of somewhere around 43 kilos.”
They were purchased for export by processor Thomas Foods International.
Droughts in parts of southern NSW, Victoria and South Australia have been impacting supply and weight of the lambs in a time of high demand.
“The lamb job just keeps getting better and better, just as those numbers drop away .… but these lambs coming in today, they’re massive big lambs.”
Mr Spencer said the lambs, bred by Mark Tabain, drew keen interest from the opening bid.
“It was very spirited bidding,” he said.
“Mark was over the moon, he’s a fella who doesn’t like the limelight much but he does an amazing job with his lambs year in, year out.”
The industry is now asking where the top of the market could be, as consumers brace for possible price rises for the final product.
Agents from Dubbo held the national record for a few days, after topping at $477.20/head earlier this week.
Mr Spencer said he would not be surprised if next week brought another record price.
“As the old lambs start to drop in numbers and weight, if our suckers come in a bit later, [there] just could be a window that this job could just get a little better.”