WHAT a difference a week or two makes in the current cattle market environment.

Timing its run perfectly after last week’s widespread rain across parts of eastern and southern Australia, Queensland’s Tawarri Pastoral Co offered a big run of 827 Angus weaned steers on AuctionsPlus on Friday. The steers, all 6-8 months in store condition, sold in eight lots in weight groupings from 225kg to 314kg.

The steers (see listing photo above) were bred on Tawarri’s country near Merriwa NSW before being early-weaned in February due to seasonal conditions and shifted north as the poor season closed in to another Tawarri block near Glenmorgan on Queensland’s western Darling Downs.

The three lightest mobs averaging 225kg liveweight, made from 576-581c/kg, or a little over $1300. Another four mobs carrying similar Booramooka and Coolie Angus bloodlines averaging 276kg made 556-560c, or about $1535, while the heaviest group of 101 steers (in this case Angus x Ultrablacks, not straight Angus like the others) averaging 314kg made 543c/kg.

The AuctionsPlus report from two weeks ago suggests similar Angus steers 200-280kg were at that time averaging 536c – 52c/kg cheaper than Friday. The 280-330kg lines averaged 44c cheaper a fortnight ago at 533c.

If the Tawarri offering listed on Friday through agents, Allied Beef, is valued conservatively at 45c/kg better than what they would have made online a fortnight ago, it means the vendor likely picked up an additional $97,000 by delaying the sale until after last week’s rain. That’s based on 827 steers averaging 261kg, making an additional 45c/kg liveweight.