The deal would have required nationwide adoption of bare-breech breeding programs and the immediate dismissal of Australia Wool Innovation's $7 million clips.

Under the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's (PETA) three-point offer, Australian farmers would need to immediately abandon clip mulesing, ensure no clip or surgical mulesing took place after the 2010 deadline and start bare-breech programs with the aim of all wool sheep having naked bottoms by the end of 2013.

In return, PETA said it would walk away from the issue and stop harassing retailers.

But WA producers were sceptical of the deal.

Even if PETA could be trusted, what it was asking was difficult, if not impossible, for some types of wool producing sheep across the country.

Most of the damage PETA could have caused had probably already been done, breeders said.

WAFarmers wool section president, Max Watts, said trying to deal with radical animal rights groups such as PETA just did not work.

"You cannot trust them as far as you can kick them," Mr Watts said.

"One minute they are supporting the use of the clips, the next minute they change their minds.

"In the past they have broken their word while we have kept ours."

Mr Watts said farmers continued to do everything they could to phase out the practice by 2010.

"It is time PETA took a reasonable stance," Mr Watts said.

"It might be possible for some flocks to get to bare breech quickly but others may never get there.

"If they think this is all going to happen overnight they are living in fairy land."

Shahs Merino stud principal Peter Ralston, Tammin, said he would be asking if PETA was really going to stick by its end of the bargain and stop harassing international retailers; otherwise its deal would mean nothing.

"In any case, what they are asking us to do is not possible on a nationwide scale given the timeframe," Mr Ralston said.

"While it is possible to breed for certain characteristics quickly, producers would have to sacrifice other traits, which have been their focus for many years, in order to do so.

"To breed a national bare breech flock by 2013, while maintaining the quality Merino sheep we currently have in this country, would be impossible."

Mr Ralston has spent the past 15 years breeding plainer sheep which had eliminated the incidence of body strike and helped create an easier care animal.