There has been a marked decline in national saleyard throughputs in the past seven days, with yardings at centres covered by the National Livestock Reporting Service falling by 13pc week on week.

Queensland experienced the largest decline due to Tuesday’s Roma store sale dropping by 37pc. 

Yardings in NSW were back by 21pc, reflecting smaller offerings at Gunnedah, Wagga and Forbes.

Victoria was the only state to record an increase in throughput.

The NLRS said quality across the majority of yardings has been plain, however, prices were holding for better quality supplementary and crop fed cattle.

Good numbers of well finished cattle were included in yardings at Forbes, Scone and Wodonga, the MLA-operated market intelligence service reported.

At the close of yesterday’s (Wednesday’s) market the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) was back by 2.5c on last week’s levels to settle on 376c/kg cwt.

The trade steer indicator suffered the largest decline for the week to Tuesday, back 5c to settle on 209¢/kg.

Medium steers faced increased competition from buyers to be 5c higher on 189c, while heavy steers lifted a further 7c to make 191c/kg. Medium cows remained relatively firm on 134c while feeder steers eased 3c on 204c/kg.