Popular search terms
  • Biosecurity toolkit
  • Contact us
  • What is biosecurity?
  • Farm Biosecurity Program
  • Plant pest responses
  • Animal disease response
  • Farm profiler
  • Toolkit
  • Subscribe
  • About
    • About the Farm Biosecurity Program
    • Emergency animal disease responses
    • Emergency plant pest responses
  • Essentials
    • Farm inputs
    • Farm outputs
    • Ferals & weeds
      • Wild dog biosecurity
    • People, vehicles & equipment
    • Production practices
    • Train, plan & record
    • Videos
  • Toolkit
    • Gate sign
    • Create your own biosecurity kit
    • Declarations
    • Manuals
    • On-farm biosecurity planning
    • Records
  • Crops
    • Cotton
      • Cotton best management practice
      • Cotton product management
      • Cotton pests
    • Feed mills
    • Fruit & nuts
      • Fruit & nut pests
        • Apple and pear pests
        • Avocado pests
        • Banana pests
        • Cherry pests
        • Citrus pests
        • Mango pests
        • Nut pests
        • Papaya pests
        • Summerfruit pests
      • Fruit & nut product management
    • Grains
      • Grains pests
      • Grains product management
      • Grain storage options
    • Honey bees
      • BeeAware website and newsletter
      • Code of Practice and National Bee Biosecurity Program
      • Honey bee glossary
      • Honey bee product management
      • Honey bee pests
      • Honey bee best management practice
      • Beekeeper advisory – mosquito insecticide control during the 2022 Japanese encephalitis outbreak
    • Nursery & garden
      • Nursery & garden pests
      • Nursery & garden product management
      • Nursery & garden best management practice
    • Onions
      • Onion pest threats
      • Onion pest eradication or control examples
    • Plantation forestry
      • Forestry biosecurity practices
      • Forestry pests
      • Hypothetical exotic bark beetle incursion
      • Plantation forestry quality assurance
    • Potatoes
      • Potato pest threats
      • Potato biosecurity areas
    • Sugarcane
      • Sugarcane best management practice
      • Sugarcane biosecurity essentials
      • Queensland Sugarcane Biosecurity Zones
      • Sugarcane pests and weeds
    • Vegetables
      • Vegetable pests
      • Vegetable product management
    • Viticulture
      • Phylloxera
      • Viticulture pests
      • Viticulture product management
  • Livestock
    • Alpacas
    • Beef cattle
    • Chickens
    • Dairy cattle
    • Ducks
    • Eggs
    • Feed mills
    • Goats
    • Horses
      • Mosquito Management for Horses
    • Lot feeding
    • New and emerging livestock industries
    • Pigs
      • Feeding your pigs
      • Controlling mosquitoes around piggeries
    • Ratites
    • Sheep
    • Zoo animals
  • Get help
    • Property biosecurity management planning
  • News
    • E-newsletter
    • Subscribe to Farm Biosecurity News
  • Stories
  • Videos

Health data captured from one-in-three slaughtered sheep

Print this page
  • Home
  • News
  • Health data captured from one-in-three slaughtered sheep

Health data captured from one-in-three slaughtered sheep

The final numbers are in, and 2019 has proven to be another record-setting calendar year for the National Sheep Health Monitoring Project (NSHMP), with around one-third of all sheep slaughtered in Australia being inspected by a participating abattoir.

Run by Animal Health Australia (AHA) with the support of sheep industry organisations Sheep Producers Australia and WoolProducers Australia, the NSHMP is designed to capture information on health conditions which either affect the productivity of the sheep, or cause carcases to be trimmed during processing, both of which impact profitability for the producer.

AHA’s Senior Manager Biosecurity, Dr Rob Barwell, says that the NSHMP continues to deliver value to the thousands of properties whose sheep have been inspected over the 12 months.

“In 2019 we monitored 9.57 million sheep, across 42,000 separate lines from 9,600 individual PICs,” Dr Barwell explained.

“According to Meat & Livestock Australia, around 29.2 million lambs and sheep were slaughtered in Australia in 2019 – this means our participating plants inspected around one in every three sheep processed last year.”

The NSHMP monitors for 19 conditions automatically when sheep are consigned to participating abattoirs, plus Johne’s disease on request by producers. Producers are then able to access the health data of sheep they have consigned to the abattoir through the Livestock Data Link portal – managed by Integrity Systems Company – using their NLIS login details.

“The conditions we monitor for are endemic in many regions of Australia and can hit you in the hip pocket, though you might never see signs or symptoms on the farm,” Dr Barwell explained.

“What this means in practice is that carcases and offal must be trimmed or condemned at the plant, meaning less money paid to you.”

“By knowing when and where these conditions are impacting sheep, and feeding that information back to flock managers, we can improve liveweight gain and limit wastage, which is good for everyone.”

Full lists of both conditions monitored and participating abattoirs can be found via the AHA website.

Producers can find out more about Livestock Data Link via Meat & Livestock Australia.

“If you’ve been sending sheep to slaughter, the odds are good that you already have some data available,” Dr Barwell explained.

“If we can all make a small difference on our own farms, it adds up to a big difference to the industry as a whole.”

Read the latest information on
Foot-and-mouth disease

Read the latest information on
Lumpy skin disease

Read the latest information on
Japanese encephalitis

Subscribe to our newsletter

Farm Biosecurity News

Use our profiler to make your

Biosecurity Toolkit

Latest News
  • 30 April 2025

    Silent invaders: what to watch out for this season
  • 28 April 2025

    The role of growers in the national biosecurity system
  • 28 April 2025

    Protecting Australia’s livestock: the critical role of the Ruminant Feed Ban
  • 28 April 2025

    Prevent, protect, and show with confidence
  • 31 March 2025

    Australia’s national biosecurity system: ready when it matters the most

Emergency Animal Disease Hotline
1800 675 888

Exotic Plant Pest Hotline
1800 084 881

  • Sitemap
  • Copyright
  • Contact us
  • Privacy & Disclaimer
  • Website by Morph Digital