There were 24.4 million cattle, including beef and dairy, and 68m sheep in Australia in 2021.
Where they all called home makes for fascinating viewing.
There were more sheep in NSW than there were cattle in the whole of Australia, for example.
Meat & Livestock Australia has released herd and flock maps based on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics stock numbers.
The ABS stats show some fascinating trends, including just how much stock NSW has snavelled, particularly sheep from Western Australian and Victoria and cattle from Queensland.
In a nutshell, the breakdown of the numbers by state for cattle shows:
- Queensland: 10.7 million head (44%)
- NSW: 4.4 million head (18%)
- Victoria: 3.6 million head (15%)
- SA: 1 million head (4%)
- WA: 2.1 million head (9%)
- NT: 1.7 million head (7%)
- Tasmania: 800,000 head (3%).
On a region basis, the Fitzroy Basin was the area with the most cattle in Australia, totalling 2,523,546 head - more than all other states except NSW and Victoria.
In sheep, the breakdown was:
- Queensland: 2.1 million head (3%)
- NSW: 24.7 million head (36%)
- Victoria: 15.4 million head (23%)
- SA: 10.8 million head (16%)
- WA: 12.7 million head (19%)
- Tasmania: 2.4 million head (3%)
