Hold or sell calculator
Enter today's weight and your cost of gain. See whether the extra pounds will outrun the seasonal price curve, and the week it stops paying to hold.
West Kentucky Auction Barn in Mayfield, Kentucky, reported by USDA Market News. Sheep and lambs sell 3rd Tuesday. Prices below are from the Oct 19, 2026 sale, against last week, last year and the 5-year average. Plus a seasonal outlook that follows the holidays that drive demand.

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| Weight | This week $/cwt | Sep 21 | Year ago | 5-yr avg | Head |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slaughter lambs | |||||
| Under 60 lb | — | 335.00 | — | 276.07 | — |
| 60–80 lbMOST SOLD | 358.59 | 281.56 | — | 254.44 | 39 |
| 80–110 lb | 267.14 | — | — | 202.86 | 14 |
| 110 lb and up | 215.00 | 231.67 | — | 171.43 | 3THIN |
| Slaughter ewes | |||||
| All weights | 171.41 | 150.00 | — | 139.58 | 30 |
| Rams | |||||
| All weights | 220.00 | 217.50 | — | 127.50 | 2THIN |
Lambs in the 60–80 lb range averaged $358.59/cwt at the Oct 19 sale, up $77.03 since the Sep 21 sale. Receipts were 118 head.
A free account gets the weekly report for your home sale barn. The Market plan opens every barn below, with full sale history and the market tools.
Holiday buying drives much of the demand at the auctions. Several of those holidays follow a lunar calendar and arrive about 11 days earlier every year.
A month-by-month average hides those peaks across the year. We measure every sale by its distance to the nearest holiday, so our reports line up with the buying, not the calendar page.
Enter today's weight and your cost of gain. See whether the extra pounds will outrun the seasonal price curve, and the week it stops paying to hold.
Sitting between sale barns? Compare what the same load would net at each, after the drive.
Pulled straight from USDA Market News and kept on file, so the comparisons run on the full record.
When USDA revises a report, we catch it and update the numbers.
When too few head sold to trust a price, we flag it.