INDICATORS: Cattle indicators ease as large proportion of heifers hit market

The National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) has continued to fall, dropping another 1.68c/kg in the past week, after tumbling 18.39c/kg the previous week. The indicator rallied slightly on Thursday, lifting 1.74c/kg from Wednesday, but remains 11.64c/kg back on the previous month and 11.13c/kg on the year prior.

The National Young Cattle Indicator is a seven-day rolling average of young cattle sold across all NLRS-reported saleyards and Australia’s suite of online livestock marketplaces.

NSW online sales, recording an average price of 359.92c/kg, accounted for the largest portion - almost 30% - of the calculation this week, with Roma Store sales recording a significantly reduced yarding of 2,438 head, to account for the second largest portion of the calculation.

Yearling heifers were the largest category included, with 5,523 head, averaging 309.90c/kg liveweight, a 1.88c/kg price boost from last week.

Meanwhile, The Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI), a seven-day rolling average of young cattle from 23 saleyards across Queensland, NSW and Victoria, was sitting at 636.19 cents per kilogram dressed on Friday morning, back 4.75 for the week, 69.19 for the month and 39.87 on last year.

In the sheep markets, the restocker lamb indicator was sitting at 676.04 cents per kilogram dressed on Friday morning, a fall of 29.44 week on week, with the heavy lamb indicator 798.26 cents per kilogram dressed, a decrease of 47.26 for the month but an increase of 6.99 week on week.

The Merino lamb indicator was 626.43 cents per kilogram dressed, or 17.52 higher than the same time a month ago, and the mutton indicator jumped to 372.04 cents per kilogram dressed, or 32.42 higher than the same time last week.