The number of livestock holdings for cattle, sheep and goats, and pigs in Bulgaria fell by 34% on an annual basis in 2014, according to a media statement of Bulgaria’s Agriculture Ministry.

Bulgaria’s Agriculture Ministry published statistics on livestock by November 2014.

The number of livestock holdings with up to 10 bovine animals fell by almost 30%, while livestock holdings with 10+ bovine animals increased by 1.7%.

Sheep farms fell by 26.6% and goat farms by 36.6%.

Only 4.3% of the pigs were bred in farms with 1-2 animals, while 85.6% of the pigs were bred in farms with 1000+ animals.

The total number of animals decreased in almost all categories from the levels of 2013 - bovine animals were a total of 552.8 thousand, down by 4%, while sheep were a total of 1 335.3 thousand, down by 2.5% (ewes fell by 3.8% to 1.1 million).

The number of pigs dropped by 5.7% to 553.1 thousand, but the number of breeding sows over 50 kg remained the same (43.3 thousand compared to 43.5 thousand in 2013).

The total number of goats went up by 1.2%, but nanny-goats fell by 6.9%.

The upward trend in cows raised for meat remained in place and in 2014 their number increased by 23.8%, while ewes raised for meat fell by 10.5%.

The total amount of milk dropped by 5.7% to 1 231 098 tonnes.

Cow milk totaled 1 102 732 tonnes, sheep milk 74 978 tonnes, goat milk 44 521 tonnes, and buffalo milk 8 867 tonnes.

During the period under examination, livestock holdings sold and slaughtered around 2.2 million animals, down by 5.7% from the previous period.