
The AWN team this year, instead of holding its annual Wickepin sheep sale in the saleyards, opted to offer the ewes purely on the AuctionsPlus platform last week.
AWN offered just over 1800 ewes on behalf of five vendors in the national sheep sale and prices topped at $63 a head.
AWN State wool and livestock manager Greg Tilbrook said they decided to sell online this year to keep their clients' costs in mind, given the state of the current sheep market.
"We made the decision to offer them for sale in a special sale on AuctionsPlus to see if we could find growers willing to invest in the market," Mr Tilbrook said.
"We are hearing that there is a bit of enquiry from the east.
"This was a great opportunity for them to pick up some great lines of young breeding ewes."
The offering consisted of all 1.5year-old ewes, shorn between May and October, from regular vendors who usually sell in AWN's annual Wickepin sheep sale.
The line taking out the top price of $63 in the AWN offering was a draft of 270 Lewisdale blood, August-shorn ewes offered by LC & CJ Tyson, Kulin, and they were purchased by a buyer at Finley, New South Wales.
These ewes ranged from 16.8 to 17.2-months-old and weighed from 55 kilograms to 80kg liveweight.
Also seeing a good return was DC Martin & Co, Wickepin, which sold a line of 350 August shorn ewes based on Martin Downs bloodlines for $60 to a local buyer.
The Martin's line-up of ewes ranges from 16mo to 17mo and weighed from 41kg to 65kg.
Based on further enquiry post-sale, the other lines offered have also now found new homes.