Large crowds gathered under a clear blue sky for the annual Deniliquin Store Sheep Sale on Friday, which resulted in total sales of $3.63 million.
Before the auction kicked off, all in attendance lowered their hats for a minute of silence to acknowledge the recent passing of former Elders Deniliquin branch manager Clyde McKenzie.
Elders Deniliquin livestock manager and Deniliquin Associated Agents president Jason Andrews said sheep numbers were less than expected - about 10,000 fewer than the 40,000 forecasted.
But he did say some of the individual results were better than anticipated.
“The top end Merino ewes performed to expectation or slightly better, but there were pockets that didn’t quite meet our expectations.
“The wether lambs were also better than expected, but predominately it was the wether lambs that didn’t make the numbers due to a wet winter and spring.
“They didn’t come up as we thought they would.
“We were happy enough with the numbers.
“They were actually better than we had anticipated given the market draw back over the last few weeks.
“The uncertainty in the economy effects household budget pressures, which have had an impact on the prime market which in turn has a flow on effect to store markets.”
One vendor, Peter McDonald said the recent floods prompted him to take his sheep to the Deni sale.
One quarter of his ‘Glencoe’ property near Barham remains underwater.
“The only reason we’re selling them is because of the floods,” he said.
“Because 25 per cent of our place is underwater, and probably will be for about 12 months, I’ve got to lighten our numbers.”
Mr McDonald said after a good spring they had plenty of feed but now was the time to sell 400 of his scanned-in-lamb (SIL) Merino ewes.
“We’ve only got just enough feed to get through with the sheep we’ve got because there’s still another 500 ewes,” he said.
“We’ve got plenty of sheep and plenty of feed at present but I wouldn’t have wanted to keep them for another month.
“Personally, they’ve just gone off in the last few weeks; two to three weeks ago they would have been in their prime.”
Mr McDonald said if anything, selling the sheep now was going to boost their income this year. But he was concerned about the long-term impact the following year.
“Arguably, there's 400 less lambs that I’m not going to have to sell next year,” he said.
Mr McDonald’s ewes went for $154 a head.
The next bid was for 140 mulesed Merino ewe lambs born in autumn last year from ‘Willum Park’, which were sold to AWN for $92 a head.
The client’s agent from Arentz and Barker, Justin Barker, said the result was better than they expected after a bad start to the fat market this year.
One of the first pens to go under the hammer was 400 first cross Border Leicester/Merino ewes from ‘Mi-Fortuna’ Deniliquin, by Womboota Super Borders.
They sold for $250 a head.
Vendors Peter Roe and Jocelyn Harriage said they were “very happy” with the result.
“The name ‘Mi-Fortuna’ is Greek for good luck,” Mr Roe said.