Welfare

More Government Inspections of UK Farm Animal Welfare

UK - The Animal Health Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) inspected more farms in the UK in 2013 to assess animal welfare than the year before.

1 August 2014

2 minute read

Europe

The agriculture ministry, Defra, has published the figures for the number of animal welfare inspections in 2013.

The total number of farms inspected last year was 4,493 - up from 4,345 in 2012.

In 2013, 1,998 individual farms received a welfare inspection from the AHVLA compared to 1,874 the year before.

Farm Enterprise	Number of farms subject to possible inspection	Number of farms inspected
Number of on-farm animal welfare inspections undertaken in Great Britain during 2013
Cattle (excluding calves)	86,881	1,385
Calves	50,094	927
Pigs	62,319	524
Sheep	125,110	1,032
Goats	18,780	154
Chickens (excluding laying hens)	19,029	42
Laying hens - Barn	234	1
Laying hens - Free range	2,616	13
Laying hens - Enriched	111	2
Laying hens - Backyard flocks*	20,355	188
Ducks	8,849	78
Geese	5,276	76
Turkeys	3,046	66
Ratites (e.g. emu, ostrich, rhea)	44	5
Notes: *The category 'Backyard Flocks' covers all holdings with fewer than 350 birds, and includes Barn, Free Range and Enriched cage systems. (1) The table reflects the number of unique farm enterprises (i.e. livestock categories) visited by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) at least once (in some cases more than once) during 2013 at which a welfare inspection was carried out. (2) If a farm has more than one enterprise, a veterinary visit may result in more than one enterprise inspection, therefore within the 'Number of farms inspected' column, a single farm may feature more than once and the sum of this column does not represent the total number of farms inspected. In fact, overall, a total of 1,998 individual farms received a welfare inspection from the AHVLA in 2013.