By Lauren Henry

Western Victorian sheep producers are being forced to cull older ewes due to a poor season.

AWN Wimmera manager Wayne Driscoll said he believed there would be a shortage of mutton next year.

“You cannot continue to sell off at these high levels without some catch up ramification at some stage,” he said.

“So our thoughts are, particularly in our area, that come the autumn next year, subject to what season conditions look like, there could be a real shortage of mutton going forward.”

Mr Driscoll said farmers were not buying extra sheep.

“There’s no one holding their hand up saying ‘I’ll go and buy 1500 or 2000 ewes extra and trade them for the year,” he said.

“A lot of the producers in the area – most of them – are downsizing, selling that extra age group of ewes, mainly due to the season.

“There was a couple, that with a little bit of a carryover from the year before, we’ve seen these enormous numbers that we haven’t seen for decades across the Wimmera.” 

Mr Driscoll said South Australian sheep producers were in a similar situation.

“They’ve been doing the same thing – downsizing as well,” he said.

“These sheep have been processed, so they’re not coming back. 

“That’s something to be very clear of. You can transfer young sheep around the country via store connections, but once they’ve been processed, older ewes, they’re not coming back, are they.”

Mr Driscoll said the number of prime lambs was also lower.

“Our numbers have been slower out of the gate this year than normal, and once again that’s seasonal conditions, so our window of real fresh lambs came and went,” he said.

“We’re into second drafts now that are dry, and woolly, and they’re saleable enough to be making reasonable money – 120, 30, 40, 50 dollars, so they’re moving them, but we don’t have a lot of really good heavy processing lambs at the moment.”

Mr Driscoll said a sale at Edenhope last week had lower numbers compared with last year.

“That’s a sign of people that chose to make a transaction on new lambs earlier instead of feeding them through to take them through to these one and a half,” he said.

The entire November 27, 2024 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!

The entire November,27, 2024 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!