The Number of Dairy Cows Continues to Decline

In Croatia, the total number of cattle increased by 1.6 percent last year compared to the previous year, but the number of dairy cows decreased by 5.4 percent, continuing the trend of declining total dairy cow numbers, according to data from the Croatian Bureau of Statistics (DZS).

At the end of last year, there were a total of 451 thousand cattle in Croatia, which is 1.6 percent more than in the previous year, according to the DZS report on livestock and poultry as of December 1, 2017.

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“Despite the overall increase in the number of cattle by 1.6 percent in 2017 compared to 2016, the trend of declining total dairy cow numbers continues,” statisticians emphasize.

Namely, the number of dairy cows fell from 147 thousand at the beginning of December 2016 to 139 thousand at the beginning of December last year, a decrease of 5.4 percent.

Cattle production statistics show that last year the number of young cattle under one year increased by 1.3 percent, totaling 156 thousand head, while the number of cattle aged one to two years increased by 12.4 percent, to 100 thousand head.

According to DZS data, the total number of pigs was 1.12 million last year, which is 3.6 percent lower than the previous year, with the number of breeding pigs increasing by 4.1 percent to 128 thousand, and the number of sows increasing by 1.4 percent to 71 thousand.

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Statistics on livestock and poultry show that the number of sheep increased by 2.9 percent last year to 637 thousand, and the number of goats increased by 2.7 percent to 77 thousand.

According to data as of December 1, 2017, there were a total of 10.39 million poultry, which is an increase of 5.5 percent compared to 2016.