A LITTLE bit of sun was enough on Friday to keep cattle prices strong at the Wangaratta Livestock Exchange monthly store cattle sale.
Nutrien Harcourt stock agent Daniel Fischer said market prices remained firm with the outlook into the new year equally positive.
"There were lots of restocking enquiries on the back of the sun coming out; a couple more days of that before the sale would have been appreciated, but you take what you can get," he said.
The healthy yarding of close to 900 head saw heavy steers above 400kg range from $2350 to $2450, $2150 to $2350 for 300–400kg, and less than 300kg between $1600 and $2100.
"I think most vendors are very happy at the moment," Mr Fischer said.
"On the back of the fantastic spring we've been having and with the cooler conditions, we're looking at an extended spring season.
He said farm flood damage was very localised but from what has been experienced from the wet conditions so far, many paddocks would be water–logged and not producing usual pasture growth so cattle aren't doing as well as they could have been.
"Prime cattle are not getting the finish you would like and the feeder cattle are not gaining the weight as they normally could," Mr Fischer said.
"We're all confident, however, the market will be gaining strong momentum going into the weaner sales in the new year.
"There is only one more monthly cattle sale until then so there should be strong demand."
He expected the strong showing at last year's weaner sales in Wangaratta to be replicated next year.
The Corcoran Parker weaner sale will be held in the first week of January and the Blue Ribbon Weaner Sale presented by the combined agents will be at Wangaratta on February 1 and 3.
Russell Tull from Yarrawonga, who has a property at Boorhaman, was one of many at the sale who was smiling with the warm, sunny conditions.
He had a pen of eight 9–11 month old Angus cross Belgian blue vealers at an average weight of 334kg up for sale and was confident of a good price.
"Happy to see some sunshine now, we've been waterlogged the last month or so, it just hasn't stopped raining," Mr Tull said.
"The paddocks are fairly wet so we're looking for some sunshine and wind to air them out again.
"I think we're going to march into a pretty good spring now, the season is looking pretty healthy.
"I think we're probably in for a green Christmas the way it's going.
"Once these northern countries get back on track and get out of the floods, there's going to be a massive amount of feed around."
Mr Tully had hoped to attract around $2000 for his cattle, so he was even happier when they sold for $2150 each.