Mareeba Cattle Sale

I went to my first ever livestock sale a few days ago. It was the weekly cattle sale at the Mareeba saleyards. It was an interesting experience to say the least. When they first started auctioning I didn't understand a word they were saying - it was just a cacophony of noise created by only one man! Gradually the noise became numbers, though I was still baffled by who was making the bids, none of the guys leaning on the rails seemed to move. I moved around to the side and managed to make out their gestures, a slight raise of one finger, a small sideways nod of the head, or something equally as non-descript.



Auctioners in action

Occasionally there would be some intelligible words said, usually when there was confusion over which cattle were being auctioned. And it is easy to see why there is confusion - rarely are all the cattle in one pen sold in one auction. Some are painted on various parts of the body with blue paint to differentiate them although the paint job is so shoddy in most instances it is unclear weather the paint is on the shoulder, the rump, or in a line down the back. Other intelligible words were used when a buyer suggested the cattle should all be auctioned together, or wanted a particular beast left out of the auction.

The crowd - mostly watching the spectacle and catching up rather than buying cattle

A sale was followed by a jumble of numbers and letters that must be some sort of reference number but also included the price, the number of cattle, and the buyers name. For some reason unknown to me the price is then reduced by 0.8c/kg on every sale (you bid on cents/kg). Most of the cattle at this sale were heavy steers, cows or bulls that are bought by meatworks in the area to cut up. There are only a few 'store' cattle, which usually means small steers you can buy to fatten up. I think the confusing nature of this sale is partly due to the fact that there are only 4 or 5 buyers, and they are there to buy most of the 1000 odd cattle offered, so they have adapted ways to make it quick and simple. I imagine at store cattle sales where many more people who don't go to the same sale every week are buying might be a little easier to comprehend.

Once the sale had moved to another row of pens the yard staff moved individual pens down to the scales where the cattle are weighed as a group and placed in bigger yards - one allotted to each meatworks presumably. All in all it was very interesting, and man there were some big cattle there. There were a couple of horny caught bulls from the Cape that must have been as tall as me, and a couple of pens of Brahman steers who had withers almost as tall as me and must have weighed over 800 kg. At $1.60/kg that makes each beast worth about $1300!

Some of the steers on offer