For more than half the yard, the sales mean moving from drought affected southern New South Wales to ‘greener pastures’ interstate.

And they are unlikely to be the only ones, with Elders Bendigo livestock manager Nigel Starick expecting another sell-off in the next week or two.

“They just took the first raft down now, then they’ll go to second and third rafts later on,” he said.

Despite the influx of lambs from New South Wales, Mr Starick said there was total clearance.

“They sold very well, above expectation,” he said,

“People can see the opportunities to get into some lambs earlier.”

Related: Bendigo agents yard record numbers at Livestock Exchange

He said the influx of lambs was about six to eight weeks earlier than expected due to the dry conditions in southern New South Wales.

About 17,000 lambs were sold today, many of which were from the vicinity of Hay, Deniliquin and Carrathool.

Mr Starick said lambs fetched between $8 – $10 more than expected, with prices ranging from $19 – $126.

He said prices were on par with those in Swan Hill on Friday.

Mr Starick said a lot of today’s support came from the Wimmera and Mallee regions, as well as Gippsland and Bendigo.

“They’ve got the option to buy lambs because they’ve got the feed and they’ve got the water where the northern places haven’t,” he said.

He said a point of differentiation from 2001-02, when he said the Bendigo Livestock Exchange recorded its biggest yarding of 64,000, was pricing.

“At the moment the lamb price is so high, so it’s making things a lot better for the producers,” Mr Starick said.

“Even though they’re doing it tough, they’re getting very good prices for their lambs.”

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Elders southern Australia livestock operations manager Ron Rutledge said it would probably be another four to six weeks before the lambs returned to the livestock exchange in prime condition.

“The local farmers are a bit miffed at the whole situation at the moment,” he said.

“Last week here there was in excess of 600 sucker lambs, this week there's 17,000. It's a graphic change around in a week.”

But he said the primary objective was to keep the animals’ health at best, ‘so the buyer can have a good outcome and the seller can have a good outcome’.

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Mr Rutledge expected the cascade of stock from southern New South Wales to Victoria to persist if the dry conditions continued.

“We’re already seeing cattle enter into Victoria into the sale programs. It’ll just keep resonating further into the south depending on weather formations,” he said.

With minimal rainfall, Mr Rutledge said farmers in southern New South Wales were highly reliant on irrigation water, ‘which is on a very small scale this year.’

“So they’re being caught on two fronts – low irrigation water, low rainfall,” he said.

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