A new report from The Wildlife Trusts is raising questions about the accuracy of UK poultry numbers, with potential implications for the wider supply chain. The report, Counting Chickens, suggests that official government figures may be substantially underestimating the number of birds in the system. The analysis focuses on four major poultry-producing counties – Herefordshire, Shropshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk – and identifies wide discrepancies between different official datasets. While the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) agricultural survey records around 48 million birds across those areas, alternative data sources, including environmental permits and poultry register figures, indicate totals…