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Cattle, pigs and poultry numbers recorded in England on 1 June 2022 were all down on the previous year.
The biggest drop is in pigs, with total pig numbers falling 3% to just over 4.1m and breeding females down 17% at 261,000, the lowest it has been for 20 years.
Dairy and suckler cows are also in decline, with numbers down 1.3% in 2022 at 1.7m. Since 2018, suckler numbers have dropped over 8% to stand at 650,000. In the same period, dairy cow numbers fell 4%, with 1.09m on farms in 2022.
Total poultry numbers have decreased by 1.6% to stand at 139m. However, there has been some recovery in breeding ewe numbers, with 7.07m on farms in 2022, the highest since 2019.
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