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.
The number of dairy farmers that used the Sire Advice application has increased from 3,034 herds in 2020 to 3,260 herds in 2021; an increase of 7% from last year. This includes mating’s for over 473,000 dairy cows and heifers. Of these mating’s’, 442,971 were assigned a mating from a Holstein Friesian AI bull, representing an increase of 5% on last year’s figure. 25,382 were assigned mating’s for a Jersey AI bull, which represents a decrease of 11% on the 2020 figure. Beef mating allocations increased by 18% for 2021, with 26,636 beef inseminations allocated through the Sire Advice application.
The following are the 20 mating’s identified from the dairy sires chosen from this year’s Sire Advice selections.
The top 20 bulls have an overall weighted average EBI of €287 and a fertility sub index of €111.
15 of the top 20 bulls are genomic bulls. The weighted average of the daughter proven bulls chosen amounted to an EBI of €271 with a fertility sub index of €106.
While the GS bulls weighted average came to an overall EBI of €295 with a fertility sub index of €121. A good fertility sub index is clearly seen from the majority of top 20 chosen dairy sires for this year’s breeding season.
We would urge the recording of AI service data if not yet recorded on ICBF. This is important for running weekly and end of season fertility reports and our overall animal evaluations Finally, if using beef AI from the remainder of the breeding season, please use beef sires from the Dairy Beef Index.