This isn't to mention the three sales from January 2-6 being hosted just down the road at Colac and Mortlake.

With the region one of the few in the country having a cracking season, calves are likely to be presented in impressive form and if the sale just across the border at Naracoorte, SA, a fortnight ago is anything to go buy, prices may also be.

Hayden Lanyon, Elders Kerr & Co, said south-west Victoria was having a "phenomenal" season and the cattle were going to be "very good with plenty of weight in them".

"As far as buying support for heavy calves I believe feedlots will be active, but with the current circumstances in the north and supply of cattle continuing to come through, there's always the concern of backgrounding or smaller sub-320 kilograms finding buyers," Mr Lanyon said.

"Traditionally there is always local support but we do rely on northern and Gippsland backgrounders to come in; everything is saleable at a price, there will be competition at some level of course."

Describing the spring as a real "purple patch", he said the season had been as good as many producers who had been in the area 60-plus years had seen.

"South-west Victoria is as good as anywhere in the country, and producers have been able to absorb cattle in the past six to eight weeks, putting on agistment and buying a few for themselves which they don't usually do," he said.

"But that means some of the areas we usually put weaners into are currently full, as they've made the most of spring flush and weight gain in October through to December."

Mr Lanyon said numbers should be reasonable, with the herd not altering much over the past 12 months.

"Store and weaner cattle have been selling quite well, especially considering the state the rest of the country is in, but the further into the summer we get as spring fizzles out that will have some sort of bearing on what weaner sales do," he said.

Rick Smith, Landmark, Casterton, said he was predicting everything to be identical to the 2019 sales, with numbers and weights fully firm.

"We've had a great spring, but it was very slow to get going through autumn and winter because of the cold weather," Mr Smith said.

"Leading into the spring was slow, it's moving now but native grass has overrun good grass and we're going to end up with a lot of dry feed."

He said the buying support was likely to come predominantly from the western district and south-east South Australia, unless the wet season kicked up in the north or an export company got a large order.

"Prices have been fluctuating from sale to sale, Naracoorte was very strong, but then you hear reports cattle are being bought at 300-320 cents a kilogram, so I am anticipating if it stays north of 300c/kg for steers and 290-300c/kg for heifers it is good for everyone," he said.

Princess Royal played a strong buying role at the opening Naracoorte sale in December, picking up cattle on the heavier end of the offering, and other feedlots are likely to join the gallery at the new year sales.

With a record number of cattle on feed for most of the year, supported by best-yet export demand for grainfed beef to China, agents are predicting them to operate strongly on feeder entry weight cattle.