Cashmore Oaklea online ewe sale soars above 1300c/kg for maternal composites
A high-quality selection of maternal composite breeding ewes sold well above meat value, with several sale lots exceeding 1300 cents a kilogram.
The multi-vendor Cashmore Oaklea ewe and lamb sale was held online via AuctionsPlus on Thursday, and reached a sale high of $306 a head.
The top price of the sale was reached for Lot 18, a pen of 1.5-year-old hoggets offered by Cashmore Oakleaclients Ken and Carmen Varcoe, Teranga, Kalangadoo, SA.
The hoggets were bought by Philip Wade, Woodlands Pastoral, Bullarook.
All up, the sale offered just over 5000 maternal composite ewes and lambs across seven different vendors, which included Oaklea genetics and its commercial clients using Cashmore Oaklea bloodlines.
Oaklea stud co-principal Alex Lyon, Nene Valley, SA, said they were "absolutely rapt" with the results of the sale.
"It was a really successful sale," Mr Lyon said.
"Just having a look at the cents a kilogram returns that we and the other vendors got - it's fantastic.
"Ours alone ended up returning about $60 above meat value for our young ewes.
"The meat price is always the goal we work towards when we put a reserve price on the sheep."
Mr Lyon said the success of the sale was a great show of industry confidence for self-replacing prime lamb production systems.
The sale grossed $888,702 and averaged $271, with a 65 per cent clearance rate at the end of the helmsman-style auction.
However, straight after the sale, all passed-in lots were sold, resulting in a 100pc clearance for the vendors on the day.
Over 100 people logged onto AuctionsPlus to view the sale, with 23 active bidders and 14 successful buyers across the 25 lotssold.
Sheep were sold as far as Texas, Qld, and into Longford, Tas, but most were sold into the west and south-west districts of Victoria.
"The sale started off pretty slowly, but it finished really, really well," Mr Lyon said.
For the Oaklea Cashmore offering, the stud sold to a top of $304 for the best of their young ewe lambs.
The stud offered 1150, June 2025-drop, 47kg, ewe lambs which averaged $301 across five lots, and topped at $304 for Lot 1, and one lot of 150 lighter ewe lambs averaging 37kg for $210.
Oaklea Cashmore also sold two lots of five-year-old ewes, totalling 560 sheep, for $258 and $260 for the respective lots.
Mr Lyon said they weren't expected to be able to offer the sheep at the weights they were at, given the extremely late start to the spring season.
"In comparison to last year, our ewes and our wether lambs, which we are selling next week, are about 4-5kg up on last year's weights," he said.
