Results from the Scottish Agricultural Census: June 2024

Final results from the 2024 June Agricultural Census on land use, crop areas, livestock and the number of people working on agricultural holdings.

Module results on slurry storage and agricultural machinery are also included within this publication.


Sheep numbers down from decreases in number of breeding ewes and lambs

The total number of sheep decreased by 3.8% in 2024 to 6.47 million compared with the five year average. The number of breeding ewes decreased by 3.7% to 2.45 million in 2024 when compared with the same period and the number of lambs decreased by 4.4% to 3.15 million.

Figure 9: Number of lambs, ewes and other sheep (excluding rams used for service), 2014 to 2024

Line chart with three lines to show the change in lambs, ewes and other sheep between 2014 and 2024. Lamb numbers have fluctuated between 2014 and 2024 and stood at 3.15 million in 2024. The number of ewes has decreased from 2.60 million in 2014 to 2.45 million in 2024. ‘Other sheep’ over the same period have remained around 0.78 million.

Contact

Email:  agric.stats@gov.scot

Back to top