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The pig inventory in Lower Saxony fell by 3.7% from May 2024 to May 2025. According to the Lower Saxony State Office for Statistics (LSN), around 6.86 million pigs were kept in Lower Saxony on the reference date of May 3, 2025. The number of pigs kept has fallen below the 7 million mark for the first time since 1996.
The number of fattening pigs fell at an above-average rate compared to May 2024 (-5.0%). In particular, the number of young pigs also fell significantly, dropping to 1.2 million animals (-8.0%). By contrast, the number of piglets increased slightly by 1.9% (1.8 million animals). Across Germany, the total pig inventory fell by 1.2% to 20.9 million pigs.
The number of pig farms in Lower Saxony fell from 4,000 to 3,700 (-7.2%) between May 2024 and May 2025. Nationwide, 3.3% of pig farms ceased operations during this period.
One third (32.8%) of all pigs kept in Germany were located in Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony thus remained the federal state with the most pigs, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia (5.8 million) and Bavaria (2.4 million).
The largest proportion of pigs in Lower Saxony (73.7%) were kept in the Weser-Ems statistical region. In contrast, only 1.7% of the pigs kept in Lower Saxony were located in the Braunschweig statistical region as of May 3, 2025.
September 9, 2025/ LSN/ Germany.
https://www.statistik.niedersachsen.de
