THE first two weeks in December are traditionally the biggest at the Hamilton Regional Livestock Exchange (HRLX) for sheep and this year was no different.

In fact, over three days in one week there were well over 100,000 lambs sold locally, affirming the facility’s reputation for being one of the top livestock exchanges in the country.

Hamilton Stock Agents Association president, Craig Pertzel, said the occurrence was an annual highlight with lambs ready for sale, and he praised HRLX as an “A grade” place to buy and sell livestock.

“It’s as good as you can get – (it’s a) ripper,” he said.

Asked how this year’s numbers compared to previous years he said, “I couldn’t say off the top my head” but knew the numbers were consistently good.

“I’ve been doing it for 35 years, and (I don’t know) how many thousand go through every December but it’d be ballpark either side of 100 most years,” Mr Pertzel said.

“I think there was 34 or five (thousand) on the Monday (December 11), and then I reckon there was about 56 or seven (thousand) lambs on the Wednesday.

“Then about 20,000 sheep on the Friday.”

Mr Pertzel said Hamilton remained one of the top four exchanges in Australia with only Wagga Wagga, Bendigo and Ballarat comparable.

Lanyons Stock and Station Agents director, Warren Clark, echoed the observations and added the numbers had also been very good since they split the markets to different days of the week.

“Just all of a sudden, (farmers) get to December and Christmas bells start ringing and they say ‘oh, we haven’t got too many markets to go’, so they all pile them in,” he said.

“It hasn’t changed since I’ve been here (since) 1990.”