Suckler herds signed up to the HerdPlus service recently received their 2025 Beef Calving Statistics report. This report gives a comprehensive analysis of a suckler herd’s fertility performance for the period 01 Jul 2024 – 30 Jun 2025. Just under 40k herds were included in the 2025 statistics. Herds must have a minimum of two beef calvings in the period to have a report generated.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
There are fifteen KPI’s in the beef calving report. The most notable of these are calving interval, calves per cow per year and % heifers calved 22-26 months. These are usually the first three KPI’s to be assessed by farmers and advisors when looking at a herd’s calving report. Tables 1, 2 & 3 show the national averages for these KPI’s as well as giving a breakdown by herd size and scheme participation.
Best performers
Herds participating in SCEP and also signed up to the ICBF HerdPlus service are the most efficient across all of the herd sizes. These herds are 10 days shorter on calving interval, 0.03 calves/cow/year higher and have a 4% higher rate of heifers calving 22-26 months, when compared to the national averages for these KPI’s. The differences are greater again when you compare herds not participating in SCEP to those in both SCEP and HerdPlus.
The trends are also towards more efficiency as herds get bigger. Herds calving between 75-99 cows performed the best across all of the KPI’s. There was a slight disimprovement for herds calving 100 cows or more, albeit, with less than 100 herds in this category.
Summary
The 2025 calving statistics highlight some persisting issues for the national suckler herd’s reproductive performance. At a 400 day national average calving interval, the average suckler cow is caving every 13 months. 0.85 calves/cow/year means, for every 100 suckler cows, there are only 85 calves being produced. 19% of heifers calving between 22-26 months means less than one in every five heifers is calving down at two years of age, which has been shown by Teagasc research to be the most profitable age to calve heifers.
To view more information on the beef calving statistics, including breakdown by county, additional KPIs etc, visit our Beef Statistic page by clicking the button below.