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AuctionsPlus launches online lamb and young cattle indicators

Sheep Central November 10, 2023

Sales of lambs like these shorn Poll Dorset cross lambs sold on AuctionsPlus will be included in the new online lamb indicator.

NEW online indicators for lambs and young cattle have been launched by Meat & Livestock Australia as precursors to indicators combining live and online sale results.

Meat & Livestock Australia said online selling of sheep and cattle has been growing in popularity in recent years and the new indicators were launched in response to this growing marketplace.

The two indicators launched today will be called the Online Young Cattle Indicator (OYCI) and the Online Lamb Indicator (OLI).

MLA’s market information manager Stephen Bignell The OLI will use the online prices for new season and old lambs weighing 0-24kg cwt, and basically operate as a $ per head restocker indicator.

“It is not a breed indicator, but for the first time ever, you can see how lambs from individual breeds are performing.”

The National Livestock Reporting System reports on over 50 physical saleyard markets producing 16 price indicators that are reported on a daily, weekly and fortnightly basis. These indicators, along with accompanying market reports, drive more than 70 percent of MLA website traffic and cover about one quarter of all livestock transactions.

Prior to the launch of the online indicators, Mr Bignell said MLA’s cattle and sheep/lamb indicators did not incorporate any online sale data, but the intent was to incorporate online and physical sale data in future indicators.

“That is definitely where we want to go to; to have a national lamb indicator for the same specs that would include online (and physical) sales.”

MLA also wanted to produce an online mutton indicator after the first two online indicators were tested.

He said by developing online indicators published on the MLA website, MLA would open-up greater information on this important area of the market.

“Online sales have been steadily growing in popularity as an alternative for producers to market their livestock.

“The online indicators provide producers with a greater breath of data then they’ve previously had. It increases the sales-channels that MLA reports on,” Mr Bignell said.

The sale information is recorded through the online platforms and presented to MLA in a clean format that is simple to input into indicator frameworks.

“Online marketplaces boomed during the national rebuild between 2020-2022.

Even as the herd and flock rebuild matures, we’ve seen online marketplaces remain popular,” Mr Bignell said.

Source – MLA.

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