The BEEP-S scheme has brought about the largest on-farm weighing campaign of beef cattle ever in Ireland. In total over 213,000 weights have been submitted to date (12/07/21) in 2021 from herds participating in the scheme. (more…)
On-farm recorded data is a vital element of the Irish genetic evaluation process and the creation of the Euro-Star and EBI indexes. Every herd owner in Ireland can act as a data collector for ICBF and in doing so contribute vital information to the database. (more…)
ICBF launched a new online tool for our HerdPlus members at the end of 2020. The BEAM calculator is designed to allow BEAM applicants to project forward their overall organic nitrogen produced. It is still available for those operating off of period 2 (01 Jan 2021 – 31 Dec 2021). Users can enter the stock numbers which they intend to have on farm from now until 31st Dec 2021. The BEAM calculator can then indicate whether you are meeting the required 5% BEAM scheme organic nitrogen reduction or not. (more…)
As of June 25th levels of milk recording are up by more than 22% when compared to the same period in 2020. This year there are over 900,000 cows recorded year to date compared with just over 740,000 for the same period last year. (more…)
Health event recording helps to improve the reliability of the health and management traits of both the dairy and beef national herd. The continued recording of these traits will better place the Irish dairy and beef sectors to select the next generation of high health, easy management AI sires which will ultimately leave more profit for Irish farmers in the future. (more…)
As the main Spring Dairy AI season enters the final stages, we have taken a look at the number of Sire Advice that were ran by dairy farmers and they selected for this year’s breeding season. There has been another steady increase in the number of Sire Advice generated by our HerdPlus farmers this year. (more…)
With calving season coming to an end, total calf births registered in 2021 have now passed 2 million calves as of last week. (more…)
ICBF are currently recruiting for the position of ‘HerdPlus Graduate Program’. Successful candidates will be offered an exciting opportunity to join our world leading organisation for a twelve-month period commencing in September 2021. (more…)
The September 2021 Evaluation will be published on 28th September. The final date to have any DNA samples (hair/tissue/AI straws returned to ICBF to have genomic evaluation published in September, is 7th July. (more…)