Introduction

Celebrating Over 35 Years of Performance

The National Bull Performance Test Centre has been in operation for 35 years. The Test Centre has completed performance evaluations on over 5,000 bulls from 12 different beef breeds. The Centre showed a steady growth as interest in the Centre's evaluation services grew. Today, the Centre operates at capacity, testing 320 bulls per year.

Central performance testing is organised by ICBF, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. It is carried out at the Bull Testing Centre at Kildare. Before entering the Station each bull must go through a very thorough selection process. ICBF in conjunction with the Breed Societies will select a panel of bulls before entry based on EBI evaluations, back pedigree information and age criteria. Owners of such potential test bulls are notified by ICBF from the ICBF Database about the next intake and are invited to apply.

ICBF and Breed Society scorers then inspect approved Bulls. Those that pass inspection are given a thorough health check, equivalent to that required for AI Station entry, before being finally cleared for entry to the Test Centre. At Tully, bulls are penned in breed groups of 5. Each pen is bedded with peat indoors and each group of bulls has access to an outdoor exercise pen, which is made up of bark mulch.

The testing involves exposing selected beef bulls from a number of breeds, ranging in age from 9 to 12 months, to uniform feeding, housing and management conditions. The aim being to establish the genetic potential of particular bulls (namely genetically superior bulls), in terms of feed conversion efficiency and growth efficiency. Central performance testing enables more accurate estimates of breeding values of potential breeding bulls to be obtained at an early stage in contrast to an on-farm or progeny test.

The information obtained during performance testing is combined with various data including: weaning weight and calf value from the livestock marts, linear type classification from pedigree beef herds, carcass weight, carcass fat and carcass conformation data from the factories, as well as pedigree ancestry information stored on the ICBF database. The combination of these results allows a genetic profile of all animals with records and related animals to be computed. The genetic profile is represented in the form of Economic Breeding Indexes (EBI).

Tully Test Centre is proving itself to be an outstanding asset to the Irish Beef Industry. Nowhere else in Ireland can such a selection of quality beef bulls of such high health status and genetic merit be found, all at the same location.

Ultimately, the role of Tully Test Centre in allowing the best Beef Bulls in Ireland to be identified and their genes to be disseminated into the national herd is in keeping with ICBF's mission statement, that is to 'Achieve the greatest possible genetic improvement in the National cattle herd for the benefit of Irish farmers, dairy and beef industries and members'.