INDICATORS: Cattle markets ease with greater supply

The National Young Cattle Indicator (NYCI) fell slightly this week 2.11c/kg liveweight to be 347.32c/kg on Friday morning. It remains 9.32 up on the previous month and 49.02 higher than the same time last year. 

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

Roma Store Sale’s throughput more than doubled to 4,827 this week from less than 2,000 last week due to the fallout of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Roma regained the top spot as the largest contributor to the NYCI, followed by NSW Online Sales with 4,316 head.

Yearling heifers were the largest category, with a massively increased offering of 6,398 head alongside 5,923 yearling steers. The larger offering reduced heifer prices by an average of 10.74 week on week and steers lost 5.31 over the same period.

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 645.98 cents per kilogram dressed on Friday morning, back 15.89c for the week, 23.34 from a month ago and up 72.23 on last year. 

In the sheep markets, the Restocker Lamb Indicator dropped 8.74 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week and was sitting at 706.25 on Friday morning.

The Heavy Lamb Indicator fell 26.14 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week to be 779.50. 

The Merino Lamb Indicator dropped 50.45 cents per kilogram dressed compared to last week to sit at 619.27 and the Mutton Indicator fell to 404.53 cents per kilogram dressed, or 11.09 cents back on the same time last week.