Northern weaner heifers like some of those purchased for the trades described below

AS heifer prices dropped away at the start of this year and a popular trading opportunity emerged, one southern producer went early and went big.

Beef Central has been profiling some of the smart cattle trades of 2024 (see links to earlier stories in this series below), with the opportunities presented by low heifer prices earlier this year being a clear theme among most of the trades –two of the three profiles have been based around heifers.

Another large southern Australian producer, who asked not to be named in this report, also took advantage of the opportunity to buy heifers at the start of the year – buying thousands of undervalued animals and taking advantage of feed further north.

No specific type of cattle was targeted, with some heifers coming down from the gulf country in Queensland, some crossbreds and higher quality Angus-type cattle out of northern NSW.

Putting on weight was the main value-ad in this case, with most of the heifers bought at the start of the year and offloaded by the middle of the year, after being agisted in northern NSW. Beef Central was told that light heifers were so far undervalued at the start of the year that getting them into a cow grid was enough to generate a significant margin.

“We don’t buy cattle unless they are already sold, it is not a habit of ours to buy and speculate – so these cattle already had a home when bought them,” the producer said.

“I had heard stories of people selling Brahman heifers out of Queensland for about 120c/kg, even in places like the New England people were selling heifers for bugger all.

“There were no boats for a while, people were offloading breeders, the weather bureau didn’t help with its forecast of a dry summer – you had an essay full of things against the market being strong.”

Early buyers were the big winners

Getting in early was the key, with the producer saying he was able to purchase heifers for as low as 120c/kg earlier this year, which slowly increased as the months went on.

“It slowly crept up for the first half of the year, but a steer was still making 250-260c/kg, so it was worth buying heifers,” he said.

“The margin was enormous for the early trades we did and that started to come back as we got closer to the middle of the year.

“It wasn’t too long before everyone else started buying heifers and they went from cheap, to reasonable to nearly level pegging with the steer at one stage.”

While no sell price was given to Beef Central, a quick look at the AuctionsPlus results from the first week in July could be used as a guide to the increase in heifer prices. In the first week of July, lighter heifers weighing 330-400kg on AuctionsPlus were making from 232/kg to 355c/kg – averaging 308c/kg; and heavier 400kg+ heifers were making 213-300c/kg to average 230c/kg. Offering size was only small, in both examples.

The producer told Beef Central that the trades he made earlier this year were a “once in 20-year opportunity.”

“There were opportunities about, even opportunities trading lambs, but you had to be brave to do it,” he said.

“The difference between a steer price and heifer price was 150c/kg, it was still buying low and selling low – but there was definitely a quid in heifers this year.”

This is the final story in our series on smart cattle trades of 2024. Here are three earlier case studies:

• Capitalising on the heifer opportunity, one agistment deal at a time
• Smart cattle trades 2024: Kimberley-bred backgrounders head east in big numbers
• Using forward contracts and swaps on thousands of heifers

Effectively promoting your cattle offering

GOT a special offering of cattle to sell in the yards, online or out of the paddock next year? Expand their potential buyer audience to a massive national beef industry readership via a listing on Beef Central’s new Cattle Listings and Orders Noticeboard.