The national Beef herd currently stands at 950,963 cows, the population has seen a decline for the fourth consecutive year. In the last 4 years, the number of beef cows in Ireland has decreased by some 85,963 cows. (more…)
The National dairy cow population is continually increasing and has done so each and every year over the last decade. (more…)
When it comes to calving in dairy heifers for the first time, opinions differ as to what is the optimum age to calve them. (more…)
Saturday 31st Oct was the final target date for herds participating in BDGP I (2015-2020). Herds were required to have the equivalent to 50% of their reference number in genotyped 4 or 5-star females. While the final numbers will not be known until after the 24th November genetic evaluation, the vast majority of the 22,500 participating herds look on course to meet the final 31st Oct 50% target.
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Gene Ireland is the name of the national dairy breeding programme in Ireland and it forms an extremely important part of the Dairy Industry. The aim of the programme is to provide dairy farmers with the best genetics through a coordinated progeny test programme. Now in its 16th year, the program has delivered over €200 million to Irish dairy farmers through increased genetic gain. (more…)
As autumn is upon us and the HerdPlus Dairy calving reports have been generated for all farmers we can present the…
647,698 beef calves (beef sire x beef dam) were born on Irish farms in the first 6 months of 2020. Of these, 109,840 are registered to beef AI sires. This represents approximately 17% of all beef calves born. 55% of the calves were registered to a Stockbull with 27% approximately having no sire recorded.
2020 has again seen an increase in the use of dairy AI. Dairy on dairy inseminations are up 7.9% in the first half of the year with beef on dairy inseminations also up some 2.7%. (more…)
ICBF recently passed an important milestone with over 2 million cattle having a valid genotype. It only seems like yesterday that we were reporting on passing the 1 million genotype milestone in 2017. This represents an increase of 1 million valid genotypes in less than 3 years. (more…)