Far fewer horses, donkeys and other animals living on farms

Donkeys are seen on a farm in Athens, La., Friday, March 16, 2012. (Gerald Herbert / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Canadian farms contain far more animals than the typical cattle, sheep and pigs – but not as many of them as they used to.

New data from Statistics Canada shows that farmers reported owning fewer horses, donkeys, rabbits, elk and other animals in 2016 than they had five years earlier.

In some cases, the differences were drastic. The number of horses or ponies on Canadian farms declined by 25.7 per cent, to 291,561, while donkey/mule totals fell by 20 per cent to 8,832.

Smaller declines were reported in rabbits, elk, deer, llamas and alpacas.

The report also looked at on-farm populations of birds other than chickens and turkeys.

It found more mixed results there, with the biggest differences being in quail (down from more than 1.5 million to 525,400) and ducks (up from 1.3 million to more than 1.7 million).