The Sheep Industry of Australia

Originally published July 18, 2018

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The sheep industry in Western Australia, as with the rest of Australia, has been reaching record highs in the previous months. In 2016/17, just over half our gross value of livestock came from sheep, lamb and wool. After that came cattle and calves, and the milk some of them produce, followed by pigs, poultry then the odd other livestock practices. The rest of Australia sees most of its income from the cattle side of the livestock industry, yet in Western Australia sheep are a huge part of many farmers lives and livelihoods.

We are also a huge cropping state, with a lot of the key production being cropping, with sheep secondary. Two thirds of sheep farms are mixed production farms and utilise the positives to be gained through cropping. Yet despite all the huge highs in production in the sheep industry, we are seeing the smallest flock size in 100 years, despite just a couple of decades ago, in the 1990s, we were reaching the largest flock in the world. Yet despite our low numbers, we are the largest exporter of sheep meat world-wide, as well as being the largest producer of high value apparel wool.

Sheep are mostly located in the wheat sheep zone, which is dominated by merino ewes. Some sheep, especially fine wool merinos and meat breeds, can be found in the high rainfall areas. There is only the smallest proportion found in pastoral zone, simply due to the tough environment and low stocking rates. That area is predominantly broad wool merinos and shedding breeds.

Another distribution that is seeing great change is that within a flock. Years ago, flocks were around 30% wethers, with the rest being breeding ewes and then lambs, with rams making up just the tiny fraction of breeding stock. Now, the proportion of wethers has almost disappeared, dropping to around 8%. Though wethers can gain extra money per head through their higher wool quality, they lose money as they are kept yearly and not put to the slaughter. Lambs can provide a coat of wool and a carcass, and by not keeping them around as wethers, you’re opening up your stocking rate to replace these lambs much more quickly, and therefore gain more profit in that slaughter.

Around three quarters of our sheep meat leaves the country; we don’t eat all that much ourselves. Whilst the mutton export trade is decreasing, lamb export is growing. Our wool production is also decreasing, and at a rate much faster than the population decline. This is due to changes in flock structure, with wethers no longer being a large part of wool production, the amount of wool per head of sheep is much less with the higher rate of lambs and ewes. Ewes must put more energy into lambing than wethers, whereas wethers can focus all their energy on survival and wool, without any thought for breeding.

Yet despite more lambs and less wethers, traits of wool often associated with wethers more than lambs are improving despite the flock changes. This is due to improving genetics and awareness of such things amongst farmers. Wool diameter in WA is better even than the Australian average by almost one full micron. Wool is completely exported, with only a tiny handful of people processing their own for the sake of a hobby. Around 80% of wool goes to China, with the rest going to India, the Czech Republic, and then to other countries and destinations.

Despite ewe numbers decreasing along with sheep numbers in general, the proportion of ewes in the flock has increased. Carcass weight has increased in size and price per kilo. Export rates have increased, and fibre diameter of wool has decreased. Since 1990, there have been many, many changes to the industry, and we can look forward to changes in the future and science makes more great advancements, and education of farmers improves.

The problems we face include the dwindling sheep flock, and the knowledge that we are eating and selling more sheep than we are breeding and producing. With this problem comes the need to increase flock reproduction and lamb survival rate. We need to work on meeting the demands for the products and rebuild our flock in Australia. With all these needs for enhancements, there is rising opportunities within the Australian sheep industry.