A total of 19,467,326 chickens were slaughtered for domestic consumption in 2025. However, this was not sufficient as the country still imported 20.38 million kilograms (kg) of poultry products, according to the Livestock and Livestock Products Board of Namibia.
This highlighted a need for the domestic supply gap to be filled.
The country has a large number of emerging poultry producers, however, they are still at a small scale. As a result, in 2025, Namibia turned to Poland to purchase 9.16 million kg (45.0%), Brazil for 5.43 million kg (26.6%), and South Africa for 2.45 million kg (12.0%).
Namibia also sourced 1.86 million kg from the Netherlands, while Swaziland contributed 432,204 kg, Argentina 365,548 kg (1.8%), and Spain 363,200 kg (1.8% and Ireland 182,280 kg (0.9%). All remaining poultry products were sourced from Uruguay, Ukraine, Thailand, Chile, Belgium, New Zealand, and Switzerland, which accounted for less than 1% respectively.
A total of 474,161 live chickens were also imported in 2025, with day-old chicks from South Africa dominating at 394,621 heads (83.2%). This was followed by layer chickens from South Africa at 41,954 heads (8.8%), while day-old chick imports from the Netherlands accounted for 20,790 heads (4.4%).
Additionally, Zambia supplied 16,796 day-old chicks (3.5% of total imports). This implies that 92.1% of all live chicken imports were from South Africa for the year 2025.
