But the $100-plus question is how long will these buoyant lamb prices hold up, with the crop of new-season sucker lambs from the Victorian and South Australian Mallee and Upper South East just weeks off the market.

One definitive in lamb producers' favour is the anticipated shortage of lambs, due to the great grain rush and another adverse autumn period which has led to a mass ewe sell-off.

Agents expect up to 20 per cent fewer sucker lambs this year with thousands of young and old scanned in-lamb ewes slaughtered earlier in the year on the back of strong mutton prices.

Elders Coonalpyn's Bryan Biddle estimates ewe numbers in his Upper South East area are 10-15pc less than previous years.

Larger cropping areas have had a big impact but he says many producers have also forced to sell ewe flocks because of the lack of autumn feed, with several of his clients selling their entire flock.

"The feed situation is a lot worse than the last two years, because we have flogged paddocks and the seedbank has been severely depleted," he said.

The first of the sucker lambs would be turned-off in two to three weeks but it would be late-August before considerable numbers were seen - at least a fortnight later than the usual pattern.

Many delayed their lambing a couple of weeks this year, in the hope of more feed on the ground than the previous two seasons.