New figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) confirm that the national sheep kill remained tight as 2025 kicked off.

The number of sheep sent for slaughter plummeted by 27.8% in January 2025 compared with January 2024's kill.

The CSO reported that just 187,400 head went for slaughter in January, making last month the lowest monthly sheep slaughter figure recorded since February 2021.

The decline follows a decrease of over 320,000 head in 2024’s kill when compared with 2023 - a year when the kill was also down year on year.

The CSO figures put the sheep output at 4,300t of carcase weight, with levels only having been reported this low in six out of the past 100 months.

Throughput drop

Factories also saw a 4,300 head drop in their cattle throughput in January 2025 when compared with the previous January.

However, the 163,800 cattle slaughtered last month is up around 10,000 head on the average January kill for the three years preceding 2023.

The CSO noted that pig throughput was largely unchanged in January 2025 in comparison with the previous January at just over 298,000 head.