General News
14 July, 2026
Low sheep numbers force sale cancellation
The Horsham Livestock Exchange has seen low numbers in recent weeks, leading to the cancellation of the scheduled sale on Wednesday, July 8, due to a national shortage in Australia’s sheep flock.
The Horsham Livestock Exchange has seen low numbers in recent weeks, leading to the cancellation of the scheduled sale on Wednesday, July 8, due to a national shortage in Australia’s sheep flock.
The Horsham Livestock Exchange site manager, Paul Christopher, underpinned the reason for the sale’s cancellation, saying “it wasn't worth running a sale with only a few hundred (sheep)”.
“Traditionally, our numbers are really low this time of the year with winter,” Mr Christopher said.
“[About] 95% of sheep sale yards this year (across Australia), their numbers are down.”
Mr Christopher attributes the shortage in Australia’s national sheep flock to a generational and financial change in farming.
“People have gone into cropping with the dollars in cropping, as well as generational change.
“It seems to be a few of the younger ones decided that sheep were too hard and wanted to go into the cropping game.
“Also, probably several years ago, the prices dropped, and people thought that was it; we’ll go out of sheep, and they haven’t got back into them.
“Since then, the price numbers have been fantastic, so anyone that’s decided to stay in them is reaping the rewards now.”
The Horsham Livestock Exchange is expected to resume sales on Wednesday, July 15.
However, reducing the sale to fortnightly to entice buyers with fuller yards is potentially on the books.
“I believe after we go through this lull, I think the numbers will go back up again,” Mr Christopher said.
“There will be a sale this week; they are talking possibly it could go fortnightly for the next 6 weeks until our new spring flush numbers come through.
“There is fantastic lambing percentages this year, so there's going to be a few on the ground.
“Prices are outstanding; There’ll have to be some people doing financial decisions to go back into sheep because there's some money to be made in them.”