From a small pilot to a world-leading national programme, DNA calf registration has revolutionised how Irish cattle are genotyped, evaluated and registered.
Since the introduction of Genomic EBI evaluations in the late 2000s, genotyping in Ireland was largely confined to pedigree animals. Its primary uses were parentage verification and the identification of elite breeding males for AI and the national breeding programme. Uptake beyond this — particularly in commercial beef and dairy herds — remained limited.
A major shift occurred in 2015 with the launch of the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), which replaced the earlier Suckler Welfare schemes. By making large-scale genotyping a core requirement, BDGP fundamentally transformed genotyping in Ireland. The introduction of Genomic Beef Euro-Star evaluations in 2016, combined with over 300,000 beef animals genotyped annually during the five-year programme, led to a significant increase in the proportion of the national suckler herd that was genotyped.
Despite the progress, challenges to the roll out of genotyping remained. Rounding up and handling mature animals to tissue tag was labour intensive and sometimes unsafe. Parentage errors were often discovered only after registration, leading to paperwork delays to amend passports or pedigree certificates. Critically, by waiting until animals were older and already selected for breeding, a major opportunity to fully exploit genomic information early in life was being lost — along with the chance to identify exceptional or unexpected calves. In dairy herds, where there was no equivalent financial incentive, uptake remained particularly low, with fewer than 5% of cows genotyped nationally.
This prompted several questions: what if genotyping could be carried out at birth, using the calf tag in the same way BVD samples are collected? What if parentage and sex errors could be identified and corrected before a passport was even issued? And what would be possible if all cattle in the country were sire and dam verified, with full genomic data available from day one?
In late 2017, ICBF decided to explore these possibilities and, in doing so, to take genotyping to the next level. While the concept seemed simple, genotyping calves prior to registration required a complete rethink of long-established data flows between ICBF and DAFM and introduced a host of technical and operational challenges. Following extensive planning and problem-solving, a pilot DNA Calf Registration Programme was established for Spring 2018.
This initial 2018 pilot had just 18 herds. These were a mix of 8 dairy herds and 10 beef herds which were spread geographically across Cork, Limerick, Laois and Galway. An approved calf tag did not yet exist which incorporated both a BVD sample AND a genotype sample, so the genotype sample had to be taken from each calf using an additional “button” tissue tag. The participating herds submitted their calf registrations through a screen on the ICBF website built especially for the programme. Once the Genotype results were returned for each calf, the farmers then had to log back into the ICBF website to review and accept each registration.
Lab turnaround times at the time averaged seven days, and the overall time from birth to full registration was typically 18 to 20 days. To offset these additional demands, ICBF covered the full cost of genotyping. The very best turnaround times achievable at the lab at this point were 7 days and overall, the average turnaround time from when each calf was born until they were fully registered was between 18 and 20 days. To compensate the herds for these inconveniences, the full cost of genotyping was covered by ICBF. While this 2018 pilot provided lots of challenges and proved a steep learning curve, 1,500 calves were genotyped at birth, proving the concept of DNA calf registration viable and the pilot a success.
Over the next five years, further pilot programmes steadily expanded both herd numbers and calf registrations. Improved calf tags capable of taking multiple tissue samples were introduced, and farm software providers — including Agrinet HerdApp, Herdwatch, Kingswood Computing and Munster Bovine’s Farm Ops — invested heavily in developing the data integrations required to support DNA calf registration. Throughout this period, ICBF worked closely with DAFM to streamline processes and reduce turnaround times. By the end of 2022, approximately 600 herds were participating, registering around 50,000 calves per year through the DNA calf registration system.
The final challenge was scaling the system to a national level. Building on the success of the pilots, industry partners and DAFM — supported by EU funding — committed to an ambitious plan to fully genotype the national herd. In 2023, the National Genotyping Programme (NGP) was officially launched by the Minister for Agriculture, Charlie McConalogue. Under NGP, participating herds could genotype their entire herd of breeding cows, heifers and stock bulls free of charge. All calves would then be genotyped at birth at a cost of approximately €6 per calf, with the remaining €12 genotyping cost shared equally by DAFM, Meat Industry Ireland (MII) and Dairy Industry Ireland (DII).
Demand exceeded all expectations. Over 10,600 herds joined in the first intake alone (3,800 dairy and 6,800 beef), briefly overwhelming the ICBF website. By the end of 2023, an unprecedented 780,000 breeding animals had been genotyped, leading to the largest single publication of genomic evaluations anywhere in the world the following January.
From January 2024 onwards, DNA calf registration operated at full national scale. More than 560,000 calves were genotyped at birth during the year, with almost 98,000 samples processed in a single peak week in February. Despite this dramatic increase in volume, performance continued to improve, with average lab turnaround times reduced to four days and calves fully registered at an average of just 14 days of age. In 2024, the system was further enhanced through full integration with the DAFM Agfood platform. Parentage and sex errors are now corrected automatically in the AIM database, eliminating the need for farmers to log in a second time to approve DNA results.
NGP has since opened for two further intakes of new herds and over 1 million calves are expected to be genotyped the DNA calf reg system in 2026.Genotyping has now become an integral part of Irish cattle breeding, with many farmers unwilling to purchase breeding stock or use a bull without a genotype.
While there is still progress to be made towards a fully genotyped national herd, Ireland’s achievements are both world-leading and undeniable. Almost 50% of the national cow herd is now genotyped — a transformation that began with a modest pilot of just 18 herds and has grown to over 18,000 herds participating in the National Genotyping Programme today.