27,945,883 animals slaughtered in March

Agriculture & fishery
Animal slaugheting statistics

78,616 bovine animals were slaughtered in March 2018. The number of slaughtered pigs was 979,286 animals, and the number of slaughtered chickens amounted to 24,426,961 units.

In 2017, 26.12 million animals on average were slaughtered on a monthly basis. That is what emerged from the slaughtering figures for 2017 published by Statbel, the Belgian statistical office. In terms of weight, pigs account for the largest share (59 %, 912,000 pigs on average on a monthly basis). Chickens register the highest numbers, with an average of 25 million chickens slaughtered per month.

Slight increase for bovine animals, slight decrease for pigs and chickens

Over the year 2017, 920,000 bovine animals were slaughtered. This is a slight increase of 1 % compared to the previous year. The upward trend of the last four years continues for bovine animals. Throughout the year, 10.95 million pigs were slaughtered. This is a slight decrease of -2 % compared to 2016. In 2016, a decrease of -6 % was already registered compared to 2015. 300.50 million chickens were slaughtered in 2017. This is also a decrease of -2 %, after three consecutive years of rising. Read more...