With the 2022 Breeding Season just around the corner, it is important dairy farmers have a clear breeding policy as it will have a significant impact on their farm profitability and sustainability.
Over the past month, ICBF have been meeting with many dairy discussion groups online to address any questions farmers might have on some of the key improvements and changes to the industry recently. These discussion group sessions give ICBF the opportunity to engage directly with discussion groups and dairy advisors from across the entire country and to help farmers make more informed decisions ahead of the coming breeding season.
Some of the main topics covered through these sessions include genetic trends in EBI, milk solids and fertility trends, bull usage and sire advice, dairy genomic updates, benefits of genotyping dairy females and the role of the Dairy Gene Ireland breeding programme. Beef AI, the Dairy Beef Index, Commercial Beef Value and future developments are also being discussed.
Below are attached some sample slides with what is being discussed at these meetings.
We would like to thank the dairy advisors for facilitating these sessions and we look forward to future collaborative sessions with these discussion groups going forward.
If your discussion group hasn’t met with ICBF in 2021/2022 and wish to do so, please get in contact with us to arrange a group meeting.
[email protected] 023-8820452