Blog

Canadians killed more than 771 million land animals for food in 2016

Slaughter report from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada show we killed 771,625,940 land animals for food in 2016—up from 750 million farmed animals killed the previous year. The growth is mostly because more chickens than ever are being killed for meat.

Here are the numbers broken down by sector:

Meat chickens: 681,913,737
Egg-laying hens and broiler breeders: 37,877,047
Turkeys: 21,732,157
Pigs: 21,261,873
Adult cows: 2,802,568
Calves: 236,858
Horses: 53,763
Sheeps and Lambs: 552,800
Goats: 57,118
Bisons: 11,568
Rabbits: 621,431
Ducks/geese: 5,057,820

These numbers don’t even include aquatic animals, which the government only tracks by weight.

It also doesn’t include thousands of deers, elks, and wild boars killed in Canadian slaughterhouses for which 2016 numbers are not available.

These death statistics also don’t include the millions of male chicks killed at birth in the egg industry, the animals killed on farms by unconscionable euthanasia methods, and the animals who suffered to death before even reaching the slaughterhouse.