683,896 cattle were slaughtered in Ireland between January and May this year, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The Livestock Slaughterings May 2026 report published today (Wednesday, June 24) shows this is a decrease of 12% or 93,000 head when compared to the same period in 2025 (776,926 head).

The number of cattle slaughtered in May 2026 decreased by 0.6% to 134,200 head in May 2026 when compared with May 2025 (134,900).

CSO

The number of sheep slaughtered between January and May 2026 stood at 962,000 head, a decline of 0.6% or 6,000 head when compared to the same period last year.

It also marks a significant fall on the almost 1.2 million sheep processed in the first five months of 2024.

The number of sheep slaughtered in May increased by 3.7% to 191,000 heads compared to the same month of 2025 (184,100 head).

The CSO data also shows that the number of pigs slaughtered in the first five months of 2026 grew by 3.7% to nearly 1.5 million when compared with the same five-month period in 2025.

The number of pigs processed in May 2026 was down 1.6% to to 278,000 head when compared with May 2025.