Home slaughter in the UK: can you kill your own animals?

Updated 2 November 2026

Yes. In England and Wales you can slaughter your own pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, poultry or rabbits at home, but only on your own property, only for you and your immediate family who live with you, and only if the animal is stunned first by someone competent. You can’t sell or give away the meat, or take the carcase to a butcher.

The law that applies

Killing your own animals for your own table is covered by the retained EU rules on welfare at killing, Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009, together with the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015 and the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (Wales) Regulations 2014. Food law, TSE rules and animal by-product rules apply too.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) pulls these together in Home slaughter of livestock: a guide to the law in England and Wales, last updated in September 2026. It defines home slaughter as the slaughter of a livestock animal by its owner on their own property, for their own consumption or that of their immediate family living there.

On the points covered here, we found no difference in substance between England and Wales. The English and Welsh welfare regulations are built the same way, and the FSA guide covers both. The differences are practical: you report to different systems, and Defra’s guidance on methods is written for England.

What you can do

• Kill an animal you own, on your own farm or property.
• Do it yourself, if you have the skill, or have a licensed slaughterer do it under your supervision.
• Eat the meat yourself and share it with your immediate family who live in the same household.

Defra’s guidance confirms that no licence is needed when you own the animal, kill it on your property and the meat is for your household. Whoever does the killing must still be competent: the law says killing and related operations can only be carried out by people with the skill to do them without causing avoidable pain, distress or suffering.

The FSA advises telling your council’s animal health and welfare team before you slaughter, or within five days afterwards if that isn’t possible. This is best practice rather than a legal duty.

What you can’t do

• Sell or give away the meat. That includes friends, relatives who live elsewhere, farm shops, farmers’ markets and bed and breakfast guests. Home-killed meat placed on the market can be seized and destroyed.
• Share an animal outside your household. Partners or co-owners, such as friends who club together to buy a pig, are only covered if they are family living in the same household.
• Kill it somewhere else. Slaughtering your animal on someone else’s unapproved premises is unlawful, and that includes the farm you bought it from. The only other lawful place is an approved slaughterhouse.
• Take the carcase to a butcher. The FSA guide is explicit that a home-killed carcase can’t be taken to another premises, such as a butcher, for further processing. Dressing, cutting and storage all have to happen on the farm where it was killed. Only the animal by-products leave.
• Kill without stunning. Slaughter without prior stunning, including for religious reasons, is only allowed in an approved slaughterhouse.

Bringing in a slaughterman

If you don’t want to do it yourself, you can pay a licensed slaughterer to come to your property. They must hold a certificate of competence or a WATOK licence covering the work they do, such as restraint, stunning and bleeding, and the slaughter must happen under your responsibility and supervision. The FSA says it would be unlawful in all cases to employ anyone else to slaughter an animal on your property.

Bringing someone in changes nothing else. The meat is still only for your household, and the carcase still can’t leave the farm for cutting.

Stunning, restraint and bleeding

Livestock must be stunned by a permitted method and, unless that method kills outright, bled or otherwise killed before it can regain consciousness. Defra’s guidance for England sets out the main points:

• Restrain the animal without causing pain or distress, unless you’re using a firearm.
• Penetrative captive bolt can be used on any species, but it only stuns. Bleed or pith the animal straight away. On horned sheep and goats shot behind the horns, bleeding must start within 15 seconds.
• Electrical stunning with tongs needs minimum currents: 1.3 amps for pigs, 1.0 amp for sheep and goats, and 1.28 amps for cattle aged 6 months or more. Kill immediately after stunning.
• Shooting with a free bullet is also permitted, using the right calibre and power for the animal, but it brings its own firearms and safety rules.
• Bleed by cutting both carotid arteries, or the vessels they come from, straight after stunning. Bleeding must be rapid, profuse and complete, and finished before the animal could come round.

Then wait until bleeding has finished, and at least this long, before dressing, scalding or plucking:

These are skills to learn from someone experienced, with the right equipment. The Humane Slaughter Association publishes practical guidance on on-farm slaughter. If you have any doubt you can do it humanely, the FSA says the animal must go to an approved slaughterhouse.

Poultry and rabbits

When you kill your own poultry, rabbits or hares for your household, the EU-derived regulation doesn’t apply, but national rules do. Schedule 4 of both the English and Welsh regulations says:

• you must not cause avoidable pain, distress or suffering
• you must have the knowledge and skill to do it humanely and efficiently
• if you bleed the bird or rabbit, you must stun it first with a permitted method and bleed it without delay.

Defra’s guidance adds that manual neck dislocation should only be used for birds under 3kg, when no other method is available, and for no more than 70 birds a day. Mechanical neck dislocation is limited to birds under 5kg, again only when no other method is available. A firm blow to the head is only allowed for rabbits of 5kg or less.

Selling farm-killed poultry or rabbits is a separate matter. There is a small-quantities exemption for producers, but it comes with registration, licensing, labelling and record-keeping rules. See selling your own meat.

Cattle, sheep and goats: TSE rules

The TSE rules, which guard against diseases such as BSE and scrapie, apply to cattle, sheep and goats. They don’t apply to pigs, poultry or rabbits.

Specified risk material (SRM). In animals over 12 months old, or sheep and goats with a permanent incisor through the gum, the skull (including the brain and eyes) and the spinal cord are SRM. The lower jaw of cattle and the horns of sheep and goats are excluded. SRM must be removed, stained with a colouring agent and sent to an approved Category 1 rendering or incineration plant. It must not be eaten. Removing the spinal cord means splitting the carcase down the backbone.

BSE testing. Some cattle must test negative for BSE before the meat is eaten. The FSA lists healthy cattle over 30 months born in Romania, Bulgaria or non-EU countries, emergency slaughter cattle over 48 months, and cattle of any age showing signs of BSE, which must also be reported. Testing is arranged through an approved BSE sampling site. If you plan to kill cattle over 30 months at home, check with APHA or a sampling site first whether a test is needed. If a test is positive, the whole carcase must be disposed of as Category 1 by-product.

Disposing of the waste

Everything you don’t eat is an animal by-product. Hides, skins, hooves, feathers, wool, horns and hair are Category 3 if they show no sign of disease. SRM is Category 1, and other waste may be Category 1 or 2.

In practice this means having it collected by an approved transporter, such as a knacker, and taken to an approved or registered rendering or incineration plant, and keeping records. APHA or your council can tell you what’s available locally. Burial or burning is only allowed in narrow cases, such as designated remote areas or a disease outbreak. Never feed meat or kitchen scraps to pigs, poultry or other farmed animals: feeding catering waste to farmed animals is banned.

Record the death in your herd or flock register and report it where required, for example to the British Cattle Movement Service for cattle.

Emergency slaughter is different

If an otherwise healthy animal is injured and can’t travel, it can be killed on the farm as an emergency slaughter. A vet has to examine and certify it before slaughter, and the carcase then goes to an approved slaughterhouse for inspection. If it passes, the meat can be eaten or sold.

Why use an abattoir instead

Even people who could kill at home often choose private kill at an abattoir:

• The carcase is inspected and health marked, so you can sell the meat or give it away.
• A butcher or cutting plant can hang, cut and pack it.
• The abattoir deals with SRM, by-products and BSE testing where needed.
• Trained staff and purpose-built equipment make a clean, humane kill more likely.
• You don’t need your own stunning kit, hoist, chiller or cutting room.

The FSA says private slaughter at an approved slaughterhouse follows the same rules and procedures as a commercial kill. Use the finder to see which abattoirs near you take your species, and read the private kill guide for how booking, paperwork and collection work. There are species guides for pigs and sheep and goats. If moving the animal is the problem, read about mobile abattoirs.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules differ between England and Wales and change over time, so check with your abattoir, vet or local council if you're unsure.