2026 New Year’s Resolutions for Your Beef Herd
As another year draws to a close, many of us take the Christmas period to reflect on the highs and possibly the lows of the past year. For beef farmers, this is the perfect opportunity to assess herd performance in 2025, whether you’re operating a drystock or suckler enterprise, and to set clear goals for 2026.
We all want our herds to become more efficient, more sustainable and, most importantly, more profitable. Sometimes the smallest changes can have the biggest impact. With that in mind, here are 10 key actions worth considering for the year ahead from an ICBF perspective.
1. Review Your Herd’s Euro-Star Index
A simple review of your Euro-Star evaluations can lead to significant improvements. Before examining the indexes, think about your farming goals:
- Are you in SCEP?
- Are you producing weanlings or finishing beef?
- Are you pedigree breeding?
- Are you breeding or buying your replacement heifers?
Your answers will influence which index best suits your system. At a basic level, focus on the Replacement and Terminal Indexes. To drive real progress, look deeper into the sub-traits such as carcass weight, conformation, daughter milk, and gestation length. This helps you identify weaknesses to breed out and strengths to build on.
Euro-Star Indexes can be viewed a number of ways. The main place would be in your Euro-Star Profile. To access this, go to View Profiles → Beef → Euro–Star. You can also get a detailed report of your herd Euro-Star. Go to Reports → Euro–Star → Beef Euro–Star.
2. Record Accurate Data
Indexes are only as reliable as the information behind them. Recording data such as calving performance, inseminations and more as precisely as possible is essential to maintain the accuracy and usefulness of genetic evaluations into the future.
3. Use the Inbreeding & Predictions Tool
This relatively new tool on the ICBF website and app allows you to check potential inbreeding levels before mating a stock bull or AI sire to your females. You can compare up to ten bulls at a time. It also predicts the potential Replacement, Terminal or CBV figures for a resulting calf, giving you greater control when planning matings and selecting sires. This is also extremely useful when assessing a potential new stock bull for your herd.
Go to Applications → Inbreeding & Predictions to give it a try!
4. Use the Active Bull List and Stock Bull Finder
It’s often said that the bull is half the herd so choosing the right sire is critical. For AI users, the Active Bull List is an excellent starting point. You can filter bulls by breeding index, sub-traits, breed, company, and price. Once you’ve shortlisted bulls, we recommend contacting the relevant AI company to confirm straw availability.
For herds using a stock bull, the Stock Bull Finder helps identify suitable bulls for sale based on index and breed. Bulls listed include linear scoring and a WHPR stamp, confirming their weight and age as validated by an approved technician — giving extra confidence when purchasing.
5. Record Scanning Results
Scanning cows is vital for managing herd profitability. It allows you to:
- Identify empty cows for culling or finishing
- Plan your calving season
- Organise cows by expected calving date
- Schedule vaccinations and mineral supplementation
You can record scanning results on your HerdPlus under Record Events → Pregnancy Diagnosis. Expected calving dates can then be viewed under View Profiles → Beef → Expected Calving.
6. Look at the myostatin status of breeding animals
There is growing interest surrounding the myostatin status of cattle. Myostatin is the change within an individual animal’s genetic makeup that allows for the development of more muscle mass. Some breeds such as Aubrac, Belgian Blue, Charolais and Limousin among others will have myostatin variants present like F94L, Q204X, NT821 etc. Knowing the myostatin status of your animals is important as it can potentially bring increased carcass weight and conformation, but it also can potentially increase calving difficulty.
Myostatin status for animals in your herd can be viewed on your HerdPlus under View Profiles → Genomics → Myostatin + Polled.
7. Weigh Your Cattle
Liveweight drives profitability in any beef system — whether you’re selling weanlings or finishing cattle. It also influences herd management decisions, from medication dosages to ensuring heifers reach the correct weight for 24-month calving.
Weights can be recorded on your HerdPlus under Record Events → Live Weight and viewed under View Profiles → Weight.
8. Use ICBF Reports
ICBF produces a wide range of reports designed to give clear insights into your herd’s performance. These reports highlight both strengths and areas for improvement.
For example, the Weanling Report, generated after weighing cows and calves at weaning, shows individual weights, compares top and bottom performers, and identifies the most efficient cows (e.g., percentage of the cow’s body weight transferred to the calf by 200 days).
All reports are available under the Reports section of your HerdPlus.
9. Download the ICBF HerdPlus app
To have access to your data on the go, the ICBF HerdPlus is available to download onto your smartphone from the App store (IOS) and Google Play (Android). The app is quick and easy to use, allowing you to access information on your herd at the click of a button and save time recording data. Viewing animal profiles such as Euro-Star and CBV, recording events like weights and serves, and tracking the status of calves submitted for the National Genotyping Program (NGP) or the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) are just some of the things you can access from the app. Use the button below to download the latest version of the ICBF HerdPlus app.
10. Log into your ICBF HerdPlus
As you can see, there are plenty of useful features available through your ICBF HerdPlus membership, whether it be on desktop or the mobile app. We would strongly encourage you to make use of the service. If you are not a HerdPlus member, it is available for €60 a year.
To log in to either the desktop or mobile version of HerdPlus, your username will be your herd number. Enter in your password which will be a minimum of 6 characters. If you can not remember your password, text the word PASS to 089 457 7663 or call us on 023 882 0452.