Sheep monitoring has found a low incidence of disease in Australian flock

The National Sheep Health Monitoring Project commenced in 2007 to monitor lines of sheep in abattoirs for animal health conditions that might reduce productivity in the sheep value chain or impact market access.

In 2022-23, the monitoring occurred in 10 abattoirs.

Meat inspectors inspected 9,822,174 sheep, including lambs (an increase of more than 2 million animals compared to the previous year) in 42,756 lines from 10,247 Property Identification Codes for 19 animal health conditions.

Sheep monitored during the project in 2022-23 were sourced from all Australian states.

Of the direct lines of sheep, 41 per cent were from NSW, 21pc from South Australia, 16pc from Western Australia, 9pc from Victoria and 7pc from both Queensland and Tasmania.

The survey found 2.9pc of sheep were affected with bladder worm, 1.8pc had pleurisy, 1.4pc had sheep measles, 1.3pc had nephritis, 1.2pc had vaccination lesions and 1.1pc had grass seed.

Other health conditions were found in 1pc or less of the sheep tested.

Australian Wool Innovation animal wellbeing program manager Carolina Diaz said the project had generated comprehensive data that provided a good indication of the excellent animal health status of the flock.

"While governments, industry groups and processors use this information to provide solid evidence to demonstrate the high quality of Australian sheepmeat and to support market access, it also provides further evidence to a wider audience that Australian sheep and wool producers are committed to exceptionally-high standards of animal health and welfare," she said.

"The report is also useful for producers, animal health advisors and state departments to track if there are any adverse health conditions emerging in their region so that they can finetune their animal health programs and address the issues swiftly."