New Zealand’s sheep farming industry is built around extensive, pasture-based systems spanning a wide range of land types, from intensively managed lowland finishing farms to remote high country runs carrying only a handful of stock per hectare. Sheep and beef farming are closely intertwined in New Zealand, and most sheep farms also carry beef cattle; the two industries are typically reported together by Beef + Lamb New Zealand and Statistics New Zealand.
As of June 2024, there were 23.6 million sheep in New Zealand, a 21% reduction compared with a decade earlier. Despite the long-term decline in sheep numbers from a peak of around 70 million in 1982, meat production and exports have remained relatively stable over the past decade, driven by improvements in genetics, productivity, and carcass weights. New Zealand is the second-largest exporter of lamb meat globally, behind Australia. There are approximately 16,000 sheep and beef farms in New Zealand, with an average farm size of around 650 hectares, though this varies considerably across land classes, from under 200 hectares on fertile lowland finishing properties to over 1,500 hectares on South Island hill country.
The red meat sector as a whole, including both sheep and beef, contributed $10.4 billion to New Zealand’s export earnings in 2024, representing nearly 20% of total national export earnings. The sector employs tens of thousands of people directly in farming and processing, and supports many more in rural service industries and transport.
New Zealand sheep farming produces two primary outputs: meat (lamb, hogget, and mutton) and wool. These two income streams have historically underpinned the economics of sheep farming, though their relative importance has shifted significantly over time.
Meat production, and in particular lamb, is the dominant revenue source on most New Zealand sheep farms today. Lamb refers to animals processed under 12 months of age; hogget refers to animals between approximately 12 and 24 months; and mutton refers to adult sheep processed at older ages, typically cast-for-age ewes and rams. Slaughter weight and carcass yield are key production metrics, with most commercial lambs in New Zealand processed between 16 and 22 kg carcass weight. Around 95% of New Zealand sheep meat production is exported.
Wool was once an equally important income stream, but its economic contribution has declined sharply. Most New Zealand sheep produce mid- to strong-micron wool suited to carpet and apparel manufacturing rather than fine apparel wool, and returns have been suppressed by long-term price weakness and competition from synthetic fibres. In recent seasons, wool returns on many farms have not covered the cost of shearing, prompting increasing interest in self-shedding breeds such as the Wiltshire and its crosses as a way of reducing shearing costs while maintaining meat production. Wool prices are forecast to improve modestly for the 2025/2026 season, though they remain well below the levels seen in the early 2000s.
Together, meat and wool production are benchmarked using a range of metrics including kilograms of carcass weight per hectare, lambs weaned per ewe mated, and average carcass weight, all of which vary significantly across farm classes and production systems.
The majority of New Zealand sheep farms are owner-operated, with the farm owner also responsible for day-to-day management decisions. This is consistent with the broader pastoral sector, where family ownership is the norm and inter-generational farm transfer is common.
Share farming arrangements, where one party owns the land and infrastructure and another party supplies labour, livestock, or both in exchange for a share of production income, exist in the sheep and beef sector but are less formalised than in the dairy industry. Unlike dairy farming, which operates under a well-established legislative framework governing sharemilking agreements, sheep and beef share farming is typically negotiated and documented as a private commercial arrangement between parties. Terms vary widely depending on what each party contributes, but common arrangements include a livestock owner grazing stock on leased land for an agreed proportion of livestock sales, or a farm manager operating the full farming enterprise in exchange for a performance-based share of income.
Lease farming, where a farm operator leases land and infrastructure from an owner and takes full commercial responsibility for the farming operation, is also common. Farm ownership through equity partnerships, where multiple parties pool capital to purchase land or a livestock enterprise, is an increasingly used pathway for new entrants given high land values and the limited availability of traditional stepping-stone arrangements.
The sheep farming year in New Zealand is strongly governed by the seasons, with the timing of mating, lambing, weaning, shearing, and finishing all structured around the natural growth cycle of pasture. The dominant production system is spring lambing, with most ewes lambing from July to October depending on region, breed, and farm system. Tupping (mating) precedes lambing by the length of gestation, approximately 147 days, meaning that most ewes are joined with rams in April and May, timed to align with autumn cycling activity in ewes.
Spring lambing is timed to coincide with the flush of pasture growth, providing ewes with the feed they need to support lactation and giving lambs access to high-quality, rapidly growing pasture during their most critical growth phase. Most lambs are weaned in December or January, after which they are managed separately and either finished for slaughter over summer and autumn or retained as replacements.
A minority of farmers, mainly on lower-lying land in mild-winter regions such as parts of Hawke’s Bay, Marlborough, and the North Island east coast, operate autumn or winter lambing systems, producing early-season lamb for domestic and export markets when supply is tight and prices are typically higher. Hogget mating, joining ewe hoggets in their first year to lamb as rising two-tooths, is practised on some farms to improve reproductive efficiency, though it requires careful management and good nutrition to avoid compromising hogget growth and subsequent lifetime performance.
Shearing occurs once or twice a year depending on farm system and market. Main shearing is most commonly done pre-lambing (mid-winter to early spring) or post-weaning (mid-summer), with timing influenced by wool price, ewe welfare considerations, weather, and shearer availability. The shearing calendar is a significant logistical planning exercise on larger properties, as shearing days require coordinating contractors, holding sheep dry, and managing shed throughput.
The sheep farming season has no equivalent to the dairy industry’s fixed 1 June Moving Day. Employment and management contracts on sheep farms vary in their start and end dates, and farm staff movement, while common at the end of the farming year, does not follow the formalised seasonal transition seen in the dairy sector.
2. Flock Demographics
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