Any farmers with prime, heavy lambs to sell will have huge grins on their faces with South Australia's heavy lamb indicator closing last week at $4.68/kg dressed weight.
But the $100-plus question is how long will these buoyant lamb prices hold up, with the crop of new-season sucker lambs from the Victorian and South Australian Mallee and Upper South East just weeks off the market?
One definitive in lamb producers' favour is the anticipated shortage of lambs, due to the great grain rush and another adverse autumn period which has led to a mass ewe sell-off.
Agents expect up to 20pc fewer sucker lambs this year with thousands of young and old scanned in-lamb ewes slaughtered earlier in the year on the back of strong mutton prices.
Elders Coonalpyn's Bryan Biddle, SA, estimates ewe numbers in his Upper South East area are 10-15pc fewer than have been seen in previous years.
Larger cropping areas have had a big impact but he says many producers have also been forced to sell ewe flocks because of the lack of autumn feed, with several of his clients selling their entire flocks.
"The feed situation is a lot worse than that seen in the last two years, because we have flogged paddocks and the seedbank has been severely depleted," he said.
The first of the sucker lambs will be turned-off in two to three weeks but it will be late-August before considerable numbers are seen - at least a fortnight later than are seen in the usual pattern.
Many have delayed their lambing a couple of weeks this year, in the hope of more feed on the ground than has been available in the previous two seasons.
Mr Biddle said the March heatwave killed large numbers of early lambs, and some producers who reported good conception rates were faced with only 50 to 60pc at marking.
Later lambing percentages were about normal, and lamb producers would be keen to get in early and take the good sucker money of $4.40 to 4.80 a kilogram.
"The way feed is and while there is good money they will look to sell 16-18kg lambs at about $4.40/kg for $70-$80 rather than keep them until mid-spring to maybe get $60-$70," he said.
The Victorian Mallee is another of the first sucker areas to come on-line, with ewes joined at about Melbourne Cup week for a March lambing.
Last week about half a dozen pens of new-season lambs were yarded at Ouyen, Victoria, with up to 16kg dressed weight lambs making $72-$73.
But Landmark Ouyen branch manager Darren Old predicts the dry start will delay the main turnoff until early September, and unlike the 2007 season, suckers should come through well into November.
Nearly 100 millimetres of rain in the first three weeks of July has put their season back on track, but the earlier lambs dropped on dry feed are a "bit woody."
"A lot of ewes have not milked as well and we have seen the lambs take a lot out of the ewes," he said.
Lambing percentages have been excellent, with large numbers of multiple births.
He says 15-25pc of his clients have switched to a total cropping focus, and with good mutton prices the Ouyen saleyards have been inundated with sheep and lambs from a wide area - from Swan Hill and Kerang, down to Lameroo.
From January to the end of June, 75,000 lambs had gone through Ouyen compared with 58,000 at the same time in 2007.
Sheep numbers are up 14,000 on last year's figures to 25,500.
Both Mr Biddle and Mr Old said that with cropping input costs escalating, lambs could again be in favour and soon.
"Especially in the Mallee," Mr Old said. "There has been a swing from livestock to cropping, but it may not be forever.
"It may only be for a year or two - whatever there is money in, farmers are going to chase."
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