WESTERN Australian sheep producers have been in pursuit of greener pastures - both figuratively and literally - over the past 12 months.
And that was reflected in Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and Australian Wool Innovation's (AWI) most recent wool and sheepmeat survey, which was released on Tuesday.
According to the survey, Australian sheep producers have reported a total breeding flock of 42.5 million head, up 500,000 ewes on last year.
Southern WA is home to the biggest proportion of those with 5.6 million head with flock growth predicted across WA in coming months.
MLA senior market information analyst Stephen Bignell said 15 per cent (+2pc on year-ago levels) of WA producers wanted to decrease, 22pc increase (-9pc) and 62pc maintain (+7pc) sheep numbers.
This is compared to national levels of 12pc to decrease, 27pc increase (-10pc on year-ago levels) and 60pc to maintain (+5pc).
"Two thirds of producers are looking to maintain the flock," Mr Bignell said.
"Australia is still in the growth phase, but the interesting piece is 34pc of the people looking to increase plans to do so by buying in more ewes.
"This could be driven by the price."
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Mr Bignell added, at the same time last year, producers were reported as retaining culls for an extra 12 months.
He said this meant they were more likely to buy than they were to retain more replacement or older ewes this year.
At a national level, Merinos make up 72pc of the total breeding ewe flock - down from 74pc on year-ago levels.
Ewes were further divided into categories including purebred and crossbred production, as well as 'other' Merinos, which accounted for 51pc, 19pc and 2pc of the Merino flock respectively.
Meanwhile, there has been 10pc growth in composites and shedding breeds have nearly doubled.
From a lamb perspective, a total of 22m lambs were reported as being on hand by Australian producers.
Merinos made up 55pc of the total lamb flock, with 12m head, which was up 4pc - or 2m head - on year-ago levels.
This was followed by first cross and pure meat lambs - accounting for 19pc and 17pc of the national lamb flock respectively.
In four months, 7.3m lambs were marked, up 500,000 head on the same time last year.
Of those, Merinos accounted for the largest proportion at 47pc, followed by first cross breeds 28pc and pure meat 18pc.
"More lambs have been marked, but there are also lambs from last season, which still haven't been processed," Mr Bignell said.
"The seasonal conditions have also meant there's been a fall in the number of lambs going onto grain."
While 7.6m ewes were joined to produce the lambs, national Merino marking rates were below that of non-Merino breeds at 93pc and 101pc.
Mr Bignell said 7.6 million lambs were expected to be sold in the next four months, with about 5m to be offered in both New South Wales and Victoria.
This is followed by WA at 13pc and SA 12pc of total lamb sales.
"More Merino lamb sales are expected in the next four months, which is interesting," he said.
"Last year, it was only 267,00 head and this year it was 400,000 head.
"WA is similar, there is a bit of an anomaly, but then we look at lambs on hand and both Merinos and first cross are up."
Separately, there has been a fall in Merino wool and lamb production.
