The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) releases monthly figures on the number and type of animals that are slaughtered as meat for human consumption. As our infographic shows, April 2019 saw almost 1.2 million sheep slaughtered - a 31 percent increase on April 2018. For the animals that Defra publishes statistics for, pigs were the second most common with 908,000, followed by 219,000 cows. Chickens are not included in this partcular report.