The English sheep flock and cattle herd has fallen to a historically low level, according to the annual June livestock survey conducted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) reports the sheep flock falling by 4.3% or a very substantial figure of 600,000 head and recorded at 13.8m head.

Within this, the female breeding flock fell from approximately 6,956,000 head to 6,567,000, equating to a reduction of 5.6% or 390,000 head.

The number of ‘other sheep and lambs’ - which includes lambs less than one year old, rams and other sheep one year and over - reduced by 3.1%, with numbers falling from 7,495,000 head in June 2023 to 7,264,000 head in June 2023.

Future numbers

Of significant concern to future numbers is the fact that the number of ewes intended for first time breeding fell by 11%.

AHDB analyst Annabel Twinberrow states that this reduction is likely to be influenced by ewe lambs and hogget ewes slaughtered in spring 2024, incentivised by favourable market conditions. This undoubtedly will reduce forecasts for the lamb crop for the 2024-2025 season.

Cattle herd

The year-on-year reduction of 2% in the cattle herd to approximately 5m head positions numbers at the lowest level in England recorded on the June livestock survey.

Twinberrow attributes pressure on margins and recent robust beef prices to incentivising higher culling of breeding stock.

The overall beef and dairy breeding herd reduced by 2.2% to 1.7m head. This was mainly underpinned by the beef or suckler breeding herd falling by 5.1% or 32,000 head. In contrast, the dairy breeding herd declined by 0.6%.

With regards cattle numbers, there were more male cattle aged over two years of age on farms in June 2024, as detailed in Table 1, but there were fewer cattle aged less than two years of age.

It was a similar situation with female cattle, pointing to pressure on output in the future.