Are cattle prices sustainable? QCL readers have their say

A number of yards across the state welcomed several thousand head of cattle this week, many of them special weaner offerings.

Some vendors opted to hold back stock until prices improved, while others were concerned about the weather conditions.

Anna Dingle and her husband Peter, The Willows, Mt Perry, were selling both weaner steers and heifers at the South Burnett Livestock Exchange Pratt Agencies Weaner Sale on Friday.

Ms Dingle was hoping the cattle market would turn around.

While they offered 88 weaner steers and 18 weaner Braford heifers at the sale, they were holding back selling more females.

"We will hold them until the market improves," she said.

"We are all natural pasture so while the grass holds up we will keep them."

Mrs Dingle said their country was haying off due to frost and they would be looking for rain by late July to early August rain to give them a spring boost.

At the same sale Mike Smith from Gayndah sold 25 steers and heifers and said, at the moment, the market was borderline.

"We have got to be somewhere in the market where everyone makes a dollar," he said.

"For these younger weaners I am offering I am hoping for about 350c/kg."

At the June Toogoolawah weaner sale on Friday, where 3800 head were expected,

Ashley Schefe, Crows Nest, said some steers between eight and 10 months of age were still making $800.

"If you can turn off that, I think you are doing well," he said.

"Everyone has to make a bit of money along the track and at the moment it still seems to be there is a bit for everybody, not a lot, but a bit for everybody."

But Graham Harris, Harrisville, said the market was too low for the expenses going into the article at the moment.

"In the big picture, it's not sustainable," he said.

"Weaner sale numbers are up, good numbers, good quality, but the demand for our product going to abattoirs etc. is subdued, so it's creating a lower market.

"But, it improves as quick as it goes down."

Nik Fritz, Boonah, agreed that an oversupply at the abattoir and meatworks end wasn't helping.

"I think it's just from the last few years, coming out of the drought and a massive build up of numbers, we are still getting over that," he said.

David Betts from Boonah buys in weaners and grows them out to bullocks.

"...so in our case it slides up and down, we just take the difference," he said.

"So long as it stays in sync it doesn't affect us too much.

"It seems to be low I think so it hard for the breeders to keep it going."

Nat Bowley from Bloomsbury has cattle on lease and manages property for John Weymouth.

She was at Nebo's cattle sale on Friday and said prices had dropped dramatically and would continue to drop.

"I don't think they're gonna come up till the end of the year really," she said.

"It'll put everybody in a tight spot now that we're going into the dry.

"People are going either have to choose to sell what they can get for their cattle or look at the pastures that they have and can they hold their cattle to the end of the year?

"Until we start getting the first couple of wet and a lot of people will end up getting what they can for what they got."

Andrew Boyd, Fairview Station, Nebo, said the drier weather was impacting prices.

"If the prices continue this way you'll just have to start selling cattle (if you don't have the grass) and then running water and all that," he said.

"I've got a hay business on the side so I've been supplementary feeding with that."