THE Big Country Brahman Sale will go ahead as planned next week despite big rain lashing parts of the north.
The annual sale at the Dalrymple Saleyards will commence at 9.30am on Monday, February 3 and continue on Tuesday, February 4 from 8.30am.
Geaney's Real Estate and Livestock agent Jim Geaney said while decent falls of up to 100mm had been recorded on properties in the Basalt country in the last few days, only 4mm had fallen at the saleyards on Monday.
"With the system receding the sale is on track for next Monday and Tuesday," Mr Geaney said.
"It's nice to talk to so many people, whether they are coming to the sale or not. There's a positive flow on effect with this rain that has been tremendous and it's creating a better feeling in the industry."
McCaffrey's Australian Livestock sale coordinator Ken McCaffrey said the outlook for the northern and central beef producers was positive.
"It certainly has been great to receive the rain over areas of the central and northern cattle country," Mr McCaffrey said.
"As far as the sale goes, this rain has come after a very dry period for the cattle industry in the central and north areas, and coming with that dry period it was been a costly period for producers, whether through agistment, providing hay or supplement for the cattle.
"That obviously has an effect on the spending power of producers and the benefits of the rain falling now it will be ongoing, and it will take some time to filter through.
"The fundamentals of the cattle and beef industry looks excellent.
"There's great demand for Brahmans on live export, and great processor demands, people all around the world want to buy our beef. And now we have the start of the season to go with it, the outlook looks good for beef producers in the central and north."
Mr McCaffrey said the vendors were looking forward to presenting their cattle next Monday and Tuesday.
"There's not a vendor that's dropped out for any reason, they have all got their bulls and females prepared well.
"All information for the supplementary sheet of weights, carcass scans and fertility data will be available tomorrow."
Mr McCaffrey said the first consignments of cattle would get to Charters Towers on Thursday, with the yarding to be completed on Friday and Saturday.
He said all cattle would be tagged and painted with their lot numbers on the weekend and said inspections were more than welcome on Sunday, or even Saturday if people preferred.
Mr McCaffrey said he was looking forward to the sale.
"We've got a great lot of cattle, a great offering that I think is as good as we've ever had. We've got a high percentage of polls cater to the poll demand in the north, but I do think all budgets will be catered for."
