- Maximise the genetic gain of your herd with Sire Advice this breeding seasonWith the upcoming breeding season almost upon us, it is time to start thinking about your 2024 bull selection. In 2023, over 4,000 herds ran sire advice and over 1,500 herds used the new sexed semen options last year. In 2022, 30,110 females were selected for beef only on sire advice. 2023 saw a further… Read more: Maximise the genetic gain of your herd with Sire Advice this breeding season
- Nitrates Band Screen 2024-Now LiveThe ICBF Nitrates Band screen is now available to ALL dairy farmers on ICBF for their 2024 online submissions. The screen allows dairy farmers to determine the milk kgs/cow band for new nitrates requirements. The banding screen went live last year for the first time to enable dairy farmers to submit the milk kgs band… Read more: Nitrates Band Screen 2024-Now Live
- NGP Weekly Update 12.03.2024 – Over 400k NGP samples received in the lab to dateWeek 11of 2024 saw over 52,000 samples received in the lab and more than 58,000 samples processed. Last week’s figures Programme overview to date Commercial Beef Value The volume of genotyped calves available for purchase in 2023 has resulted in an increase of animal’s Commercial Beef Value (CBV) displaying on mart boards around the country.… Read more: NGP Weekly Update 12.03.2024 – Over 400k NGP samples received in the lab to date
- Sire Trends in the Irish Dairy Herd 2018-2023There has been a big shift towards dairy farmers opting to use beef in the dairy herd from the start of the breeding season as opposed to the end. Looking at the 2023 data in Table 1. below, we see that there are about 120,000 more beef sired calves in 2023 (i.e. 849,044) than there… Read more: Sire Trends in the Irish Dairy Herd 2018-2023
- Who were the Top 20 Dairy AI bulls in 2023?The recently published calving statistics for 2023 (see Table 1) show the bull (IG) Knockenright Chessman at the top of the list with 13,225 calves registered. (IG) Bauravillia Pistol comes in a close second with 12,679 calves registered and in third place is (IG) Doonmanagh Seville, who incidentally was the number 1 used bull in… Read more: Who were the Top 20 Dairy AI bulls in 2023?
- NGP Weekly Update 05.03.2024 – Reduction in turnaround time from birth to passport being issuedWeek 10 of 2024 saw over 58,000 samples received in the lab and more than 69,000 samples processed. The average turnaround time from birth to passport being issued, reduced from 13.3 to 12.2 days. Last week’s figures Programme overview to date Download the new ICBF HerdPlus app to quickly track the sample through the full… Read more: NGP Weekly Update 05.03.2024 – Reduction in turnaround time from birth to passport being issued