Reader warning: the report below includes many extremely upsetting descriptions relating to animals.
With Christmas fast approaching, supermarkets and other retailers will no doubt be hoping that the seasonal spike in meat sales will help boost profits, as millions of consumers reach for their festive favourites, whether that’s turkey, chicken, beef, pork, or even lamb.
But whilst most of us would like to think that the farm animals providing our meat have been humanely reared and slaughtered, the reality could be very different. Previously unpublished records have revealed a catalogue of cruelty and suffering across UK meat supply chains, with thousands of welfare breaches involving livestock reported this year.
Internal government data, seen by the AGtivist, shows that more than 356,000 chickens, cattle, pigs, and sheep, amongst other species, were involved in welfare violations documented in England and Wales over a six month period.
The majority of infractions were connected to the transport of livestock to slaughterhouses or welfare failings on farms. There were also breaches identified at abattoirs themselves.
The records – copies of veterinary inspection logs compiled at abattoirs – were released by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) following a freedom of information request. Amongst the incidents recorded between January and June 2025 were:
- Thousands of birds dying during transportation, including some freezing to death or overheating in high temperatures.
- Injured and diseased poultry, cattle, sheep, and pigs arriving at abattoirs with open wounds, infections, broken limbs or unable to stand
- Calves and lambs born at slaughterhouses and killed just minutes after birth, amongst numerous cases of pregnant animals being sent for slaughter
- Instances of sheep being slaughtered without being properly stunned, and animals regaining consciousness after stunning
- Equipment breakdowns leading to birds being stuck on production lines, or left in transport crates for hours before slaughter
- Large numbers of poultry suffering from foot pad dermatitis, a condition often linked to prolonged exposure to wet, poor quality litter on farms
- Lengthy transport journeys, and road traffic accidents involving live animals, resulting in injuries and deaths
The revelations prompted condemnation from MPs and campaigners alike.
Dr Danny Chambers, the MP for Winchester and a vet, said the findings were “extremely troubling” and that the British public had “a right to know that the animals in the supply chain are treated to the highest welfare standards, including at the point of slaughter.”
He added: “Most farmers, hauliers and abattoirs work hard to uphold excellent standards, but this volume and severity of breaches reveals serious and systemic failures in parts of the supply chain.”
Adrian Ramsay, MP for Waveney Valley, said that the number of “critical” welfare breaches recorded was “totally indefensible.” “Too many parts of the system are failing to protect animals, and their combined impact is devastating.”
A spokesperson for the charity Animal Aid, said: “[We] campaigned for many decades to make CCTV mandatory in slaughterhouses – and now the evidence is clear that no amount of monitoring or so-called ‘welfare measures’ will prevent horrendous cruelty.”
The Food Standards Agency defended its enforcement activities and said welfare breaches affected just a fraction of animals slaughtered.
“The FSA takes any animal welfare breach very seriously and will always take the appropriate enforcement action. We do not tolerate poor animal welfare standards in approved slaughterhouses,” Junior Johnson, Director of Operations, said.
“Overall compliance with animal welfare requirements remains very high across the sector. Of over 1 billion animals slaughtered in 2024/2025, only 0.0033% were detected as affected by animal welfare breaches. Our official veterinarians are present in all approved slaughterhouses to monitor welfare standards and take immediate action when issues are identified.”
He said that the businesses running abattoirs were primarily responsible for ensuring welfare standards were met, and that they were expected to maintain “robust systems and controls.”
Vets and meat hygiene inspectors work in abattoirs to ensure legislation is complied with and that livestock are spared avoidable suffering, pain, or distress. There are currently 208 abattoirs operating across England and Wales, FSA records show.
The logs reveal a total of 2686 breaches recorded in the period, including 1184 involving poultry, 491 involving pigs, 435 involving cattle or calves, 568 involving sheep, and 8 involving goats.
The most commonly recorded breach category was “on farm / transport”, with 2356 incidents. Others were linked to unloading, lairages [areas for holding livestock before slaughter], movement and restraint, stunning, bleeding [the killing of animals], or failures in management at meat plants.
2412 incidents were classified as “critical”, which the FSA says “poses a serious and imminent risk to animal welfare or one where avoidable pain, distress or suffering has been caused”. These were recorded 92 times a week, on average, over the period.
Many incidents were connected to transport or welfare issues on farms. More than 31,000 animals were recorded as being “dead on arrival”.
In one case, 1500 birds from a total load of 9200 died whilst being transported in freezing conditions. According to the incident log, “The birds were cold and wet, all of the birds were neck dislocated to ensure that moribund birds were dead before being macerated.”
An inspector wrote : “[…] The duration of the journey during the early hours of the morning as well as the freezing weather, was the cause of the high numbers dead or suffering with hypothermia.”
In another breach, an inspector noted: “During my checks I observed a high prevalence of foot pad dermatitis among the birds […] Nearly all the birds exhibited necrotic lesions [areas of dead tissue]. In my professional opinion, these issues likely originated at the farm due to poor litter conditions, resulting in unnecessary pain and suffering for the birds.”
Thousands of birds were found to be suffering from foot pad dermatitis (also known as pododermatitis) during this period, a painful condition involving inflammation of the feet, and often an indicator of poor welfare conditions on farms.
At an abattoir processing pigs, a vet reported “tail bite” in a consignment of animals. This is a serious condition that can lead to injuries, pain and infection, resulting from pigs chewing on other animals’ tails on farms. An inspector reported: “Around 38 animals […] were found with varying grades of lesions on their tails (bites and associated abscesses/lumps around them indicating external infections in the area). This indicates poor animal welfare on farms during rearing […] the animals have suffered unnecessary stress and pain on the farm.”
More than 14,000 animals arrived at abattoirs with other injuries or illnesses, the records show, including cases of broken limbs and horns, open wounds, deformities, hernias, abscesses, bruising and eye infections, amongst other conditions.
In one incident involving cattle, an inspector reported: “I could see the right horn piercing the hide and the adjacent tissues. The area around the horn was infected and there was a puss discharge,” they noted. “In my opinion [this has caused] unnecessary and avoidable suffering by not trimming off the tip of the horn before it started to pierce the hide.”
In a separate incident, officials found a cow had been sent for slaughter despite being blind. “I observed one female Hereford [a breed of cattle] that exhibited signs of unwillingness to move,” the report stated. “[…] it became evident that the animal was blind, as it did not respond to the presence of pen bars and covers. The animal struck its horns against the […] barrier multiple times, which served as additional evidence of its blindness.”
The data revealed numerous incidents of animals being transported to slaughter during the late stages of pregnancy. In one episode, a vet recorded that a calf had just been born in the lairage: “Both mother and calf were observed to be in good condition. […] The newborn calf was stunned with a captive bolt gun [used for rendering animals unconscious] and then [killed] and disposed of as Cat 1 [waste byproduct]. The mother was sent to the slaughter line.
In another, an inspector recorded: “I noticed one newborn lamb. The aforementioned animal was looking healthy and its umbilical cord was attached [to] its abdomen. Unfortunately the mother of the animal could not be found since no sheep was seen to be particularly interested in the baby…. the newborn lamb was stunned and bled […] in accordance with welfare grounds.”
Amongst numerous failures in abattoir procedures detailed in the logs was an incident where an inspector reported a live sheep apparently being killed without stunning. They wrote that whilst a worker was shackling a stunned sheep “he simultaneously shackled another, unstunned sheep. Both sheep were then moved to the bleeding area. Afterwards, [the worker] left the stunning pen, entered the bleeding area, and bled the conscious, unstunned sheep.”
In another episode, involving poultry, it was reported that “the shackling line [a conveyer system used in meat processing plants] was stopped due to a power cut. […] Staff left the line without verifying that all live birds on the line had been unshackled. As a result, some birds remained suspended on the shackles for approximately 6 minutes.”
Similar breaches included one documented as “a failure in [the] CO2 butina system [used for stunning pigs] with several animals found recovering before and after bleeding”. Another saw a live bird “floating freely in the stunning bath. It became apparent that the bird had been subjected to continuous electrical exposure.”
The list goes on.
The FSA said that just 330 (12%) of the recorded breaches related to abattoirs, and that some of these were technical, such as incidents relating to CCTV, paperwork, and other lower severity breaches where there was no immediate risk to animal welfare.
It said that the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), and local authorities, enforced welfare laws on farms and during transport. The records show that the FSA referred 2356 breaches to external parties, with other incidents being dealt with by verbal or written advice, enforcement notices or further investigation.
APHA said it took breaches of animal welfare legislation seriously and “always investigated where concerns were raised.” It added that transporters were required to ensure that when transporting animals, they do so in a way that avoids causing pain, suffering or distress.
Adrian Ramsay said that tackling welfare issues on UK farms and in transport required multiple interventions: “Enforcement must be adequately funded, and inspections must be frequent enough to act as a real deterrent. At the same time, farmers need support to shift to higher welfare systems,” he said.
Johanna Baxter MP, vice chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Animal Welfare, said in response to the findings that she was calling on the Government to publish its long awaited animal welfare strategy “to deliver on our manifesto commitment to deliver the highest standards of animal welfare in our nation’s history.”
Let’s hope they are listening.
Learn more about the work of the APPG here.
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Photograph of pigs at a UK abattoir, supplier by Animal Justice Project
The AGtivist is an investigative journalist who has been reporting on food and agriculture for 20+ years. The new AGtivist column at Wicked Leeks aims to shine a light on the key issues around intensive farming, Big Ag, Big Food, food safety, and the environmental impacts of intensive agribusiness.
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