In post-war Britain, agriculture is increasingly concentrated in bigger farms with more livestock, known as
intensive farming. The number of intensive farms in England has increased by 77% from 709 farms in 2010 to 1,258 farms in 2017 to meet the increasing demand in food. As of 2023 there were 1,824 intensive farms in the UK. There has been a considerable reduction in the number of
abattoirs in the UK, from about 2,500 in the 1970s to 203 by 2023. This reduction in numbers has animal welfare implications due to time in transport for animals.
Halal and
kosher slaughter are religiously prescribed ways of acceptable slaughter which are controversial because of animal welfare implications.
Chicken Intensive poultry units (IPU) in
Shropshire house about 23 million industrially farmed chickens at any given time, one of the densest concentrations of IPUs in Europe. Campaigners contend the waste from IPUs has impacted the
River Wye badly with welfare implications for fish in the river.
Beak trimming of chicks is legal in the United Kingdom, as a method to reduce injurious
feather pecking, although the current
DEFRA code of practice states that routine beak trimming should be stopped as soon as possible.
Chick culling is legal in the United Kingdom, and is most commonly done using argon gas to asphyxiate chicks although chick maceration is legal but not as common. In 2022 it was estimated that 29 million male day old chicks were killed annually. The RSPCA maintains that "ninety per cent of all supermarket chickens in the UK are a fast-growing breed, genetically selected for their rapid growth rate", referred to as "
Frankenchickens". According to animal welfare expert Kate Parkes, they "live short, brutal lives with serious health and welfare issues which could so easily be avoided".
Cattle The
disbudding or dehorning of dairy calves is common practice in the United Kingdom. In England, it was made illegal under The Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act 1954, as amended, to disbud calves or dehorn any cattle without the use of an anaesthetic other than when chemical cauterisation is used. Chemical cauterisation may only be used during the first week of life. Research from 2013 on farmers’ attitudes towards farm animal welfare regulations for suckler beef cattle in Ireland showed that farmer's were ill informed and tended to disbud while calves were very young in order to avoid having to apply
local anaesthetic.
Pigs A vast majority of pigs are bred and raised in
intensive pig farms. Routine docking of piglets' tails is illegal in the UK unless approved by a veterinary surgeon, yet it is commonly done in order to try to reduce
tail biting in pigs.
Sow stalls or
gestation crates, cages that severely restrict sows' movements during their four month pregnancy, are illegal in the United Kingdom. However,
farrowing crates, practically identical cages, that sows are moved into after they give birth, in order to reduce piglet crushing are legal. The
British Veterinary Association has called for farrowing crates to be phased out by 2040. Cross Farm, in Devon, which in 2017 housed about twelve thousand pigs has been the subject of reports by Animal Equality, an international organisation, alleging violations of animal welfare law. This included pig carcasses being left in pens for several days, leading to cannibalism, pigs having untreated hernias and sows in farrowing crates biting metal bars out of frustration. In May 2025 footage from Northmoor Farm in
Lincolnshire owned by one of UK’s biggest pig meat producer
Cranswick, which houses about six thousand pigs showed serious abuse. The footage was filmed over several weeks and showed among other things the killing of piglets by
piglet thumping, whereby piglets are grabbed by their hind legs and smashed them on to the hard floor – so that they are killed by hard trauma, which is illegal. Similar abuse of pigs was recorded in a third farm that supplies Cranswick in July 2025, just days after the company had announced that piglet thumping had been banned across all its farms. Although it is common practice in Europe and many other parts of the world to castrate piglets in order to avoid
boar taint and reduce aggression in pigs, it is rarely done in the UK, because pigs are generally slaughtered before they have reached puberty. A 2005 survey of 54 pig farmers in England found them to view animal welfare as very important and acknowledged government regulation as the right mechanism to enforce it. Finally, UK pigs are predominantly stunned using CO2 gas chambers. This method of stunning is controversial because the high concentration of CO2 is aversive to pigs before stunning takes effect. Other gas mixtures do not cause pigs to squeal or flail and may thus be more appropriate, though they do take longer to take full effect.
Lamb Tail docking in lambs is done by
banding, using rubber rings, to prevent
myiasis (fly strike). Castration is also done by banding using rubber rings, it is illegal to do either if the lamb is more than a week old. So much that the
Animal Welfare Committee has advised that these methods can not be justified and should be abolished by 2028. == Animal testing ==