A light overnight sprinkle of five millimetres of rain added an unexpected lift of $30 a head to store cattle prices at Myrtleford, Vic, on Friday.
While the fall was realistically only enough to settle the dust, it did however spark a reasonable degree of local optimism with most of 700 head yarding secured by local operators.
A selection of "not-station-mated" cows with young autumn-drop calves at foot met good inquiry, making $900-$1080 per unit.
While in the steer section the best inquiry was reserved for vendor-bred especially those submitted in the sub-280kg weight group.
* Extract from a full market report to appear in Stock & Land, May 22 issue.