Market Insight – Issue 02
Saleyards
Over the past fortnight, a steady supply of livestock has been presented, with 5,300 head being offered through the Clermont and Emerald Saleyards between 4 sales. Emerald conducted two Combined Agent Prime & Store Sales, yarding in excess of 4,000 head. Cattle were sourced from local and surrounding districts with the inclusion of some larger lines of store cattle from Mt Coolon, Duaringa, and the Charters Towers region.
While store offerings varied in quality and type, both sales featured an excellent selection of local prime cows, heifers, and bullocks. At Clermont, two Prime & Store Sales saw a combined yarding of just under 1,250 head, both these sales were predominately made up of prime offerings.
Prime markets remained firm, with minor softening observed across some categories. Restockers and feedlot buyers competed strongly for the higher-quality store lines, whilst the plainer quality store cattle met selective demand.
Overall, the fortnight’s activity has reinforced a positive market outlook, reflecting solid buyer participation and confidence across both centres.
Message from the Team
The response to our newsletter has been incredibly encouraging, and we’re truly thankful for the support and feedback we’ve received. A special thank you to the Anderson family for stepping forward and generously sharing an insight into their family business. Stories like theirs are what make our region strong, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to listen and learn.
If there’s someone in your community whose story is worth hearing, a family, a producer, or a business doing things a little differently, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch.
Upcoming Sales
Emerald Prime & Store Sale
Thursday 19th February 2026
Clermont Prime & Store Sale
Tuesday 24th February 2026
Emerald Prime & Store Sale
Thursday 26th February 2026
Market Insight – Continued
AuctionsPlus
Commercial cattle numbers on AuctionsPlus have eased over the last fortnight. Despite the reduction in supply, market confidence strengthened. This was reflected in improved clearance and pricing outcomes across categories.
Central Queensland saw approximately 600 head offered on AuctionsPlus over the last fortnight. The offering from Central Queensland was all heifers ranging from backgrounders to trade weights being offered in the weaner and yearling sale.
Over the past fortnight on AuctionsPlus, cattle markets have held positive with prices following a positive trend. Recent weekly market reports show the AuctionsPlus Young Cattle Indicator lifting, underpinned by strong competition for lighter steers and heifers.
Private Treaty
Private sales of local store cattle have increased in volume over the past fortnight and transactions that have occurred have returned very strong results, with high demand for re-stocker steers and heifers locally off the back of good rainfall and improving pasture conditions.
Locally, feeder steer and heifer private sales have also seen an increase in volume, direct consignment prices on the Downs and southern feedlots have softened in recent weeks due to there being a high volume of feeders coming onto the market.
Local Central Queensland feedlots, however, are not experiencing this volume of cattle, leaving opportunity to the seller when cattle are marketed correctly.
Market Opportunities
Saleyards continue to present a strong option for marketing prime cattle.
For store cattle, saleyards, private treaty or AuctionsPlus sales would all be well worth considering and are all bringing their premiums when marketed correctly. It comes down to breed, weight, numbers and what style of sale suits you and your business best.
Local demand for feeder cattle is strong at the moment.
Understanding the current market value of cattle on hand, along with carrying costs, remains important when assessing opportunities to sell, trade, or replace stock. The H&W team can assist with these calculations and provide clarity around current market settings.
The H&W Team is Currently Sourcing the Following Lines of Cattle
Feeder steers: 400–520kg, up to 75% Brahman content
Crossbred feeder heifers: 380–480kg, PTE preferred
Backgrounder / weaner steers: 240–320kg, all breeds considered
Backgrounder heifers: 220–280kg, flatback only
Cows and calves: all quality and numbers considered
80–100 females: preferably Belmont Reds or F1 Wagyu, prefer as a cow and calf unit, to be used as recips
Market Indicators
90CL (AU c/kg): 1154 -153c
A$ / US: 70.89c +0.39c
Livestock Indicators
EYCI (CW): 854 +13
Feeder Steer: 464 -2
Heavy Steer: 437 +1
Medium Cow: 354 -12
Property Spotlight
Coral, Capella QLD
“Coral” | 129.50ha Freehold | Capella QLD
Offering space, water and established infrastructure, “Coral” presents an excellent opportunity to secure a manageable lifestyle just minutes from Capella.
Property Highlights
Home: 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home with office and outdoor entertaining area
Stables: 5 undercover stables with day yards
Infrastructure: Machinery shed
Equine facilities: 2 round yards and 40m x 50m panel arena
Paddocks: Subdivided into 6 main paddocks and holding paddocks
Cattle yards: Cattle yards with undercover vet crush, calf cradle and 5-way pound draft
Water: 2 dams and equipped well
Location: Located approx. 9km north-east of Capella
Land size: 129.50 hectares, 319.9 acres
Tenure: Freehold
For Sale via Public Auction
Friday 20th March 2026
Full Information Memorandum available.
For further details or to arrange an inspection contact:
Jake Passfield: 0488 588 044
Jack Ward: 0428 305 465
Producer / Rural Business Spotlight
“Narrien Cattle Co” – Anderson Family
The Anderson family’s operation at “Narrien” is one built on longevity, discipline and fertility driven performance.
So how long has the family been operating, and how did it all begin?
Dad, Bernard, purchased “Narrien” in June 1987 at 19 years of age. He later added “Alice River” at Jericho in 2008.
How does the business operate today, and what role does each property play?
“Narrien” runs just under half of the breeders and all of the dry cattle through to kill weights. “Alice River” operates primarily as our breeding property, but it also has the capacity to turn off prime cattle when required.
Building a Fertility Focus
When asked to rewind the clock 20 to 25 years, Cam reflected on the biggest breeding challenges.
Access to accurate information on bulls, including morphologies, maternal data and performance figures, was one of the major hurdles.
Around 25 years ago, we began implementing preg testing across the entire herd. This allowed us to remove unproductive females at weaning, regardless of how they looked, rather than carrying them through to branding the following year.
This delivered multiple benefits. We reduced service costs by not providing bulls to females we were ultimately going to cull, and it also strengthened our management of reproductive diseases, both known and unknown.
Around that same time, we started morphology testing our bulls. For years we had been applying pressure to our females to perform, and we believed it was time to ensure the bulls were doing their bit as well.
Female Selection and Yearling Joining
From the outside, the Anderson herd is recognised for fertility, temperament and performance. So what pressure is applied to females?
Because we control join, it is relatively straightforward to identify the better performing heifers, as they are all within a few months of age.
Our selection criteria is as follows: temperament, they must be naturally quiet, as this is a highly heritable trait, conformation, weight for age and doing ability, and a double check of feet and legs through the concrete race, as they must be correct at this young age.
The family has long practised yearling mating. Dad, Bernard, has yearling mated for the 50 or so years he has run his own cattle, and my Grandad, Neil, was doing the same when he moved to the area back in 1961.
Yearling mating, however, can open a can of worms if it is not done properly. You need to have all your ducks lined up. Nutrition for the heifers must be spot on, and the homework needs to be done to source the right bulls.
Finding the right bull can be a challenge in itself, balancing figures suitable for heifers while still producing an end article that suits our preferred markets.
For us, those challenges are outweighed by asking one question:
“What value do you put on that extra calf and the ripple effect it has within the herd?”
Managing Young Females and Mature Cows
So how are young females managed from weaning through to joining?
A good plan of nutrition is key. With the season we are currently experiencing, they will remain on our standard dry lick. All of our lick is high in phosphorus, which is critical for lactating cows and essential for young growing cattle.
If winter conditions are tougher, we may supplement the heifers with M8U plus Phos. It is important, however, to have the right setup in place if you choose this path, so it does not become too labour intensive.
And once a cow has successfully raised her first calf, what are the expectations?
First and foremost, she must be back in calf. If she is not, it does not matter how good she looks, she is gone. For this reason, all cows are preg tested at weaning.
You cannot expect long term improvement in preg testing rates through genetic gain if you are not culling the females that are underperforming.
To achieve this, she must maintain reasonable body condition, and nutrition management needs to be right.
That is why we feed dry lick, high in phosphorus, all year round.
Bull Selection
When discussing bulls, Cam keeps it straightforward.
Conformation, growth and fertility are all critical.
Our home bred bulls are morphology tested at 12 months and again at 18 months to ensure early puberty, which then flows through into our female herd.
Technology and Research
In terms of tools assisting day to day decision making:
Remote water monitoring has been an excellent addition, particularly during busy periods or times of high water consumption. It provides peace of mind and allows us to address issues before they become major problems.
We have also begun utilising DNA within the herd, primarily to identify which sires are having the greatest impact, but also to detect any recessive genes we want to eliminate or manage.
Looking Ahead
We are considering installing a couple of Optiweigh units within our fattening operation. The aim is to better monitor performance throughout the year and cost effectively supplement feed where required.
The two main projects we have participated in are “Cash Cow” and “Calf Alive”.
“Cash Cow”, from 2009 to 2011, focused on reproductive performance in cows. Our key takeaway was the importance of feeding phosphorus year round in mildly deficient country.
More recently, we have been involved in “Calf Alive”, which examined calf loss between PTIC and weaning and trialled cost effective strategies to minimise losses in northern breeding systems. We are still awaiting further feedback and results.
We are always open to opportunities where there is potential learning to continue moving the business forward.
Lessons Learned
When asked about mistakes along the way, one stands out.
Not vaccinating for Vibro.
For over 25 years, based on our reproductive records, we had not experienced significant reproductive disease issues. That changed five years ago.
After the drought, females returned from agistment across multiple areas. We suffered approximately a 20 percent loss from PTIC to branding across several mobs.
We acted immediately, retaining dry cows and testing them the following day.
Once Vibro was identified as the issue, we made the decision to vaccinate the entire cow herd. It was a costly exercise, but so was losing those females. Staying true to our values, we still culled any cows that failed to present at branding with a calf.
Vibrovax is now incorporated into our vaccination program.
The biggest takeaway?
“Vaccines are a cheap insurance policy.”
They may seem expensive initially, but so are cattle. And just because you have never had it does not mean you never will.
Vaccines are a cheap insurance policy, especially 7 in 1, 3 germ and botulism.
Advice Received
Be curious if someone says or does something you don’t agree with — pause, listen, ask good questions so you understand their thought process. You never know, you might just learn something, or at the very least it will reaffirm your own thinking.
The Future and the Region
As a young producer, Cam remains optimistic.
I strongly believe there has never been a better time to be in agriculture. The rate of change within the industry is incredible. Continuously looking for ways to streamline our operation is what drives me.
And when it comes to Clermont:
Is there anywhere else where you can achieve this level of economy of scale in a relatively safe rainfall area, while remaining close to multiple markets?
And where else would you find a community like Clermont, where people still roll up their sleeves to put on events for the betterment of the town, from Races, Markets and Balls to Campdrafts, Speciality Cattle Sales and Shows, and everything in between?