Sheep

The key products of the Western Australian sheep industry are wool, sheepmeat (lamb and mutton) and live sheep. At around 12.4 million sheep, the WA flock turns off between 4.5 and 6 million sheep and lambs for meat and live export as well as 65 million kilograms of greasy wool (primarily for export markets) annually.

The Merino is the most common breed of sheep in WA, making up 80% of the state's flock. The remainder are ‘British breeds’ or so-called maternal breeds, meat specific breeds such as Dorpers and some breeds for specialty meat and fibre markets.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development's current focus is on increasing lamb supply, improving the productivity, welfare and sustainability of sheep production and developing and extending targeted information products and services to generate practice change. In an effort to increase the marking rate of lambs, the department, in collaboration with industry, has developed the More Sheep initiative.

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Articles

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    The Lambing Planner

    24 October 2013

    The Lambing Planner is a simple tool that allows you to change a lambing date or a joining date to see the impacts of that on other key times in the reproductive year.

  • Photo caption: The Pasture condition guide for the Kimberley includes information for pastoralists on the 17 most common pasture types throughout the Kimberley.

    Pasture condition guide for the Kimberley, Western Australia

    27 March 2014

    This pasture condition guide can be used from the web pages or by downloading the linked documents.

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    SheepLinks - FEED365

    25 November 2021

    FEED365 is a four-year project (2021–2025) under the SheepLinks program that engages sheep producers and allied industries to re-design livestock forage systems for grazing

  • ewe and lamb

    Livestock identification and movement: sheep

    26 February 2014

    Identification of livestock is required by law under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management (Identification and Movement of Stock and Apiaries) Regulations 2013 [BAM (IMSA) Regulations].

  • Cattle freeze brand stamped on the back of a cow

    Registering as an owner of stock or as a beekeeper

    16 December 2013

    All livestock owners and beekeepers within Western Australia must be registered and their stock identified in accordance with the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management (Identification and Movement

  • Register as an owner of livestock, identify your livestock correctly

    Livestock ownership, identification and movement in Western Australia

    5 December 2013

    Western Australia has a mandatory livestock ownership, identification and movement system.

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    Confined paddock feeding and feedlotting of sheep

    15 November 2013

    Confinement feeding (also referred to as lot feeding or feedlotting) is an intensive feeding system in a confined area where all, or the majority of, feed and water is supplied to the contained anima

  • Sheep being trail fed

    Welfare decisions for sheep and cattle

    5 February 2015

    At times such as during drought, sheep and cattle are subject to dramatic loss in body condition due to reduced feed intake.

  • Pregnancy Scanning Benchmarks

    11 October 2019

    Use this tool to view the latest pregnancy scanning rates (reproductive rate) of WA sheep flocks.  Choose to see the whole data set or refine the results to show by time of lambing, by year or by s

  • Trail feeding of ewes in late summer on dry pasture.

    Grazing stubbles and dry pasture

    18 November 2013

    Dry pastures in Western Australia provide good early feed after senescence but rapidly become unable to maintain stock.

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