Records tumble at Wagga saleyards as cattle, sheep market runs hot

A hefty 7287 cattle went under the hammer on Monday, beating the previous record yarding of 7054 head set in January 2015.

Meanwhile, there was a record 75,893 sheep and lambs to keep agents and auctioneers busy on Thursday.

That figure also smashed the previous high of 75,056 sold, set in November 2022.

The number of sheep offered has also been notable in the past fortnight: 24,875 head this week and a solid 28,791 the week before.

Wagga Livestock Marketing Centre general manager Paul Martin said both sheep and cattle sales in the past week have been record numbers for the facility, with both auctions followed by significant storms that had major impacts to the site.

"It was a big day, but in saying that for the cattle we started selling on time at 7:30am and had a cow run at the beginning and Rodwells sold the last pen at 6:53pm," Mr Martin said.

"That's monumental effort, averaged over 600 head an hour for the day."

Nutrien agent Peter Cabot, Wagga, said big supplies of sheep being moved through the selling centre in the past two weeks was due to an extended period of low prices.

"What's happened if you go back three weeks from where we are now, that previous six-week period was a really, really cheap mutton market all over Australia," Mr Cabot said.

He said anywhere from 100 to 180 cents a kilogram was the best vendors could get for their sheep.

"About four weeks ago the market actually kicked and it kicked considerably and the sheep are good, all the sheep are fat in the Riverina and they're all very heavy," he said.

"Most blokes have now shorn them, they've scanned their ewes, so there was a lot of sheep to come and they copped, it was basically a $40 [a head] rise and all of a sudden they were making and extra two dollars a kilogram so the sheep were just ready there to go."

Mr Cabot said that a lot of people hadn't been sending much mutton over-the-hooks due to the low prices at the abattoirs and the high costs of cartage to get them there.

But, he said the prices for mutton throughout the Thursday sale did receive a large correction of as much as $30 in places.

Agents say the correction was due to the high supply and processors closing down during the Christmas period.

"Realistically a lot of these works are only killing for the next two or three days, so they'll kill Friday and then Monday and Tuesday next week and a lot of them are stopping and they'll clean out the chillers," Mr Cabot said.

"Some of them are killing in between Christmas and New Year and others aren't killing until the new year, so there's too many sheep for that Christmas break.

"I actually don't think it would have been a problem if we hadn't run into Christmas break, I think if we had another 27,000 next week and we were going into a normal week, I don't think it would have been too much of a problem but I think it's more we've run into the Christmas period."

H Francis and Company stock and station agent, Alex Croker, Wagga, said there had be a trend of more two- and four-tooth wethers coming through the system .

"I've noticed that there's a fair few two- and four-tooth wethers coming through, that I think they were all held over through that wet period and that sudden drop in prices for lambs last year," Mr Croker said.

"People held them over and shore them again and we're seeing a fair few of those wethers coming in now too, among a lot of ewes as well."

Mr Croker also said the large numbers of cattle coming through in the past week had been a result of a price rise in the market encouraging people to sell through the yards rather than over-the-hooks.

"Plus, usually there's always an annual turnoff around Christmas time as the season finishes down here, that was a number of factors why there's so many cattle in and also people were trying to avoid this last sale, just as it's getting pretty close to Christmas," Mr Croker said.

"The market held up pretty good, I think everyone was happy enough on the way the market held up, considering the numbers at Wagga and or around the country in the past couple of weeks."