By Charlie Reeve
Total UK poultry meat production ramped up towards the end of last year, following a slight dip in November, with production reaching 169,300 tonnes.
Much of this increase was driven by a greater number of broiler slaughterings and heavier birds at point of slaughter.
UK broiler slaughterings in December were up by 7.4% on year earlier levels to total 92.8m birds.
Meanwhile, average liveweights per bird at point of slaughter in England & Wales lifted to 2.5kg in December 2025, up on both the previous month and the same month last year.
Looking at annual figures, Overall poultrymeat production increased from 2.034m tonnes in 2024 to 2.065m tonnes in 2025.
Annual UK broiler slaughterings dropped back marginally on year earlier levels, after three consecutive years of growth.
However, boiling fowl slaughterings were up from 24.7m birds to 29.9m birds.
Chick Placings
Broiler chick placings were down by almost 8% in December at 96.7m chicks, falling back below the 100 million bird threshold.
Turkey poult placings also dropped back, down by 7.6% to 600,000 chicks.
Meanwhile, Defra figures showed commercial layer chick placings were up by 9.2% at 3.6m chicks.
Egg prices and production
Farmgate egg prices in the UK lifted by 1.2% on year earlier levels to average148 pence per dozen during the final quarter of 2025.
This left them roughly in line with the third quarter of the year.
More than 270m dozen eggs were produced for human consumption during the final quarter of the year, a rise of 7% on the year and 1.6% on the previous quarter.
Finally, the production of egg products totalled 18,000 tonnes, an increase of 34.5% on year earlier levels.