Puppy Farms

Ending puppy farms in NSW

We recognise that people love their cats and dogs. They care about their wellbeing and so do we.

Puppy farming is now illegal in NSW. On 21 November 2024, the NSW Parliament passed the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment (Puppy Farming) Act 2024, delivering the first statewide framework to end large-scale intensive dog breeding. Key measures include:

Cap on breeder size: no more than 20 female adult dogs (entire, over six months) on any premises. Breaches can attract fines of up to $110,000 and 2 years’ imprisonment for individuals, or $550,000 for corporations.
Lifetime breeding limits: a maximum of five litters per female dog (and extra safeguards around caesareans).
Mandatory breeder identification numbers (BINs): issued via the NSW Pet Registry, with traceability and record-keeping requirements.
Minimum staffing ratio: 1 staff member per 20 adult dogs to lift daily care standards.

Transitional rules: existing large facilities that had more than 20 female dogs on 24 October 2024 can apply for a time-limited exemption (scaling down until 1 December 2035).

Further staged provisions (including BIN requirements for all breeders and full compliance with the new breeding code) roll in through 1 December 2025 and beyond.

This reform was driven by sustained community pressure and advocacy in Parliament, including the work of AJP NSW MP Emma Hurst, who has campaigned for years to end puppy farming and strengthen breeding laws.

Across NSW, thousands of dogs have been trapped in intensive breeding, confined, undersocialised and used as breeding machines. The new laws begin to close that pipeline by capping scale, limiting litters, lifting care standards and enabling inspectors to act.

Our plan (what AJP will keep fighting for)

The job isn’t finished. NSW has a legal ban, but loopholes and phase-ins still exist. AJP NSW will keep pushing to:

Shut the remaining loopholes by ending long exemptions and bringing all breeders under the cap permanently.
Convert pet shops to adoption hubs and stop the retail sale of purpose-bred puppies and kittens, prioritising rescue and rehoming. (Note: NSW has not yet mandated this conversion in law.)
Create full traceability, integrating all states and territories into a national online register from birth to home.
Resource enforcement properly, including proactive inspections and audits so cruelty is detected and prosecuted. (The NSW Government has begun establishing an Office of Animal Welfare; we want stronger, guaranteed funding locked in.)
Guarantee humane outcomes for animals when facilities close, working with accredited rescues to rehabilitate and rehome, never kill.

NSW has made puppy farming illegal and turned the tide against industrial breeding. Now we finish the work: close the gaps, strengthen enforcement, prioritise adoption, and build a system where every dog is treated as family, not inventory.

What about cats and kittens?

While puppy farming is now illegal, kitten farming remains largely unregulated in NSW.
There are still no enforceable limits on how many cats a breeder can keep or how many litters a female cat can be forced to produce. Existing codes of practice offer only voluntary guidance, not the legal protections now afforded to dogs.

This gap means intensive cat-breeding operations can still exist, keeping cats and kittens in cramped, stressful environments to supply the pet trade. The NSW Government has launched a review into cat management, but reform must go further.

The Animal Justice Party is calling for the same strict breeding limits, registration, inspections, and welfare standards for cats and kittens that now apply to dogs, to end kitten farming once and for all.