A Decade of Dairy Cow Numbers 2011 to 2020
The National dairy cow population is continually increasing and has done so each and every year over the last decade. (more…)
BDGP 31st Oct Deadline Passes
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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Dairy Gene Ireland programme now in it’s 16th year
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…)
Dairy Calving Statistics 2020
As autumn is upon us and the HerdPlus Dairy calving reports have been generated for all farmers we can present the…
Who sired the beef calves of Spring 2020?
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.
AI Stats 2020 – Insemination breed trends in dairy cows
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…)
Ireland Reaches 2 Million Genotype Milestone
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…)
Carcass Quality Holding up in the Suckler Herd
Recent analysis carried out by ICBF has shown that carcass performance for suckler bred animals between 2015-2019 has seen a slight increase in carcass weight, with conformation remaining the same. (more…)
Proofs for bulls do change as they accumulate more data
Why do proofs change and does the extent of change vary depending on the type of proof for the bull? To answer these questions ICBF examined bull proofs from 1901 AI sires born over the 20-year period 1995 to 2014. (more…)