New livestock sales plan

Muchea agents have dropped a bombshell, proposing new plans to combine livestock days.

In January, the livestock selling agents in WA (Elders, Landmark, Primaries and Westcoast Livestock) sought industry feedback on a suggested change to livestock sale days across WA.

But this week the agents collectively agreed to propose the feasibility of moving the Muchea cattle sale to a Tuesday, as originally put forward, but leaving the sheep sale days at Muchea and Katanning unchanged.

This will result in sheep and cattle being sold in Muchea on the same day of the week and the Katanning sheep sale maintaining its current Wednesday sale.

Boyanup trade sales would move from Tuesday to Wednesday.

The move could see up to 3000 head of cattle and 16,000 head of sheep on the same day if the Muchea Livestock Centre ran to capacity.

Some transporters have warned that under such conditions, it would be a challenge for the centre, already besieged by operational issues, to handle the logistics of such a move.

There are also concerns transporters running sheep and cattle with the same trucks would be severely inconvenienced by the move.