The disposition of Article 299 Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine provides criminal liability for animal’s cruel treatment, including for inflicting bodily harm in the injury form. However, regulations and sources of scientific literature don’t contain a definition of the animal mutilation concept and the procedure for its establishment. Therefore, the aim of the study was to analyze the practice of forensic veterinary examination of animal’s bodily injuries, which resulted in injury. The article shows that the author's definition of "animal mutilation" is a persistent disorder of animal health due to injury or its consequences, congenital malformations, diseases, accidents that led to complete or partial loss of any organ or animal body part, or to the total or partial loss of only the functions of the organ or parts of the animal's body, which in the interaction of the animal with the environment may lead to permanent loss or significant limitation of the ability to provide physiological manifestations at the level of other animals of the same species(nutrition, reproduction, orientation and movement in space, coordination of movements, natural lifestyles, contact with other animals, self-defense, ability to perform useful work, etc.), and distorts the appearance of the animal due to mutilation of body parts due to deformation, and their physical absence. The purpose of a live subject with signs of injury forensic veterinary examination is to determine the location, nature, severity of damage to animal health, nature of the injury, the degree of disability of the animal in connection with the injury, as well as solving other tasks within the competence of forensic veterinary expert, as well as at the request of the body or person who appointed the expertise or involved the expert. It was stated that the forensic veterinary examination objects are live experimental animals in order to establish their mutilation, including victims of abuse or other illegal actions, as well as signs of congenital malformations, pathological conditions that developed during breeding, animal’s exploitation and transportation; accidents. It was found out that the subjects of forensic veterinary examination of the subject for the purpose of establishing its mutilation are veterinarians who have higher veterinary education, have been trained in forensic veterinary examination in the expert specialty 18.1 "Veterinary Research" and have the forensic veterinary expert qualification. When deciding on the infliction of an animal bodily injuries that caused its injury, the forensic veterinary expert must use the "Rules of forensic veterinary determination of the severity of damage to animal health" and the "Methodology of forensic veterinary examination of animals to determine their injury".

Key words: animals, mutilation, injuries, ill-treatment, forensic veterinary examination.