Turkey's chicken meat production down in May

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Chicken meat production in Turkey fell by 3.3% year-on-year in May, the country's statistical authority announced Friday.

TurkStat said chicken meat production amounted to 193,330 tons in May, while turkey meat production totaled 4,656 tons.

The institute said that the number of the slaughtered chicken was 109 million in the same month, marking an annual drop of 5.7%.

The number of the slaughtered turkey declined by 26% to 458,000 over the same period.

In 2018, Turkey's chicken meat production totaled 2.16 million tons. Throughout the year, the country also produced over 69,500 tons of turkey meat and 134 tons of quail meat.

The official poultry production report also revealed that hen egg production in Turkey totaled 1.6 billion units in May, rising 1.2% on a yearly basis.

Last year, Turkey produced 19.6 billion hen eggs with an annual hike of nearly 2%.

The statistical authority will release its next poultry production report on Aug. 9.