The sheep yard portion, which cost £4,000, opened on March 10, 1960. The chairman of the agents association, T.C. Fenwicke, paid tribute to those involved in the design and erection of the yards and said he hoped the new facility would stop the drift of business to the larger towns.

At the time, most sheep were sold in the paddock with a few sales held at the Eliott family’s yards at Greenwells to the south of Walcha and, earlier still, at the local pound.

Initially the new yards were not used as often as was expected with many graziers still needing to be convinced of the benefits of bringing their sheep into Walcha for auction rather than continuing with the long-standing practice of private paddock sales.

For many years cattle were auctioned at the Walcha showground yards, but this changed in 1966 after the Walcha Association Agents opened new cattle yards that were built adjacent to their sheep yards. 

It was not long before regular cattle and sheep sales were held of a Friday. Cattle were brought in on Thursday afternoon, drafted and penned up ready for sale commencing at 9am on Friday morning. Sheep and lambs were brought in on Friday morning and made ready for sale on completion of the cattle auction, usually at 11am.

On at least one occasion more than 14,000 sheep were put up for sale; every pen was full as were most of the laneways leading to them. Another time the cattle pens were filled and many of the smaller calves were put into sheep pens, only to spend much of their time jumping fences and getting boxed with other calves.

Those days are gone and in November 2015 the Walcha Associated Agents decided that, due to a lack of numbers, they could only justify using the yards for weaner sales and other special sales.