LIVEWEIGHT values reached 348c/kg at the annual Elders Manjimup weaner cattle sale recently.
A big crowd turned out for the sale with buyers competing strongly on the top yarding of beef youngsters.
The Elders team penned a total of 505 beef steers and heifers with a handful of young weaner bulls and with the added buying support at the venue, prices lifted on similar cattle offered at another South West sale earlier in the day.
Buying for a couple of orders, Kevin Armstrong, Willowbank, Benger, paid at the top-end of the market for mediumweight Angus steers, including the sale's top per head price of $1058 at 292 cents a kilogram for nine Angus steers weighing 362kg offered by AJD Stirling.
Some of Mr Armstrong's other dearer steer purchases included four Angus steers averaging 388kg from G & J Starkie costing $1046 and 270c/kg, 10 Angus steers weighing 322kg from F Pessotto & Sons that sold for $1037 and 322c/kg, 14 Angus steers averaging 315kg from GM & MA Kilrain knocked down for $1027 and 326c/kg and six Angus steers of 323kg from Torridon Farm costing $1022 and 316c/kg.
Just shy of the top price was a single Murray Grey steer tipping the scales at 440kg offered by Karri Hill Meadow which sold to Alex Roberts, Elders Boyanup, for $1056 and 240c/kg.
Semini Enterprises Pty Ltd competed strongly on the heavier beef steer drafts, paying a top price of $1047 for the sale's opening pen of 11 Angus steers averaging 361kg from the paddocks of D Peos & Sons costing 290c/kg.
Some of Semini's other buys at the sale were eight Angus steers weighing 368kg from F Pessotto & Sons knocked down for $1031 at 280c/kg and 12 of the Kilrain's Angus steers averaging 342kg costing $984 at 288c/kg.
The sale's 348c/kg top liveweight price was paid by an Elders Boyup Brook account for 14 of the Kilrain's lighter Angus steers weighing 268kg to cost $932.
The same buyer also paid 342c/kg and $956 for 14 Kilrain steers weighing 280kg.
Another pen of the Kilrain's steers was knocked down to a Landmark account for the next highest price of 344c/kg ($775) for 11 Angus steers, averaging 225kg and had previously paid 342c/kg and $849 for nine Angus steers averaging 248kg from the Peos family's draft.
Onto the heifer line-up and it was a solitary Limousin cross heifer weighing 355kg from J & I Cilemanoff that topped the per head values with L Chorley paying $923 and 260c/kg.
The first pen of heifers sold for the next highest price $803 with the 13 Charolais cross weighing 311kg purchased by Cameron Harris, Elders Manjimup, for $802 at 358c/kg.
Mr Harris also collected the following pen of three Charolais heifers averaging 312kg from AJ & WJ Ryan & Company for $773 and 248c/kg.
The Starkie family sold six Angus heifers weighing 350kg to a Landmark account for $788 at 225c/kg and Mr Harris later added to his account with a further seven Murray Grey heifers weighing 325kg from Karri Hill Meadow for $774 at 238c/kg and 14 Simmental cross heifers of 287kg from Tempra Brothers for $747 and 260c/kg.
Two lines totalling 19 Tempra heifers were snapped up by Woodlands Cattle Co that paid to $739 and 245c/kg for a pen of 10 weighing 302kg.
A pen of six Angus heifers averaging 311kg offered by AJD Stirling was sold to I & D Edgar for $752 and 242c/kg.
The Edgars secured all six lines of the Kilrain's Angus heifers totalling 64 heifers weighing from 231kg to 273kg and paid from 230c/kg to the sale's 264c/kg top liveweight price for a pen of 11 weighing 271kg costing $714.
