Selling a bull? Upload photos to the ICBF Stockbull finder to increase sales!
icbf.com/bull-sales/

Tune into CountryWide on RTÉ Radio 1 tomorrow morning from 8.10 am to listen to Dr. Margaret Kelleher (ICBF) and Philip Boucher Hayes chat about cattle breeding and AI.

The CBV can be a very useful tool for suckler farmers. By using the star ratings and breed percentiles, farmers can become familiar with the CBV and where different values rank. Read more here: icbf.com/what-is-a-good…

Don't forget to submit Nitrates Banding information ahead of the deadline, Wednesday 15th May. icbf.com/nitrates-band-…

ICBF Statistic of the week: Gestation length continues to decrease across all breeds. The table below highlights the trends from 2010-2023. This data highlights that even traits with low heritability can be modified over time with genetics. #datadrivenfacts

Use the HerdPlus app to quickly record serves during the breeding season. New features include the ability to record serves for more than one animal at a time and Sire Advice bulls automatically appear for selection.

Last Thursday, the 2024 RDS Livestock Awards Winners were also announced in the Concert Hall.

Our Winners are :

Economic Breeding Index (EBI) Award - Best Dairy Cow Award
🥇 Winner – Donal Martin Murphy, Wexford

Euro-Star Index Award - Best Beef Cow Award
🥇 Winner – Ciarán…

A new feature on Sire Advice shows allocated G€N€ IR€LAND bulls on the manually enter bulls screen. To increase EBI and reduce variation between milk and fertility, a cow with a low milk sub-index will be matched to a Gene Ireland Bull with a high milk sub-index.

She gets an extra scoop of meal tonight!
Beef Cow of the Year at the The RDS Spring Forestry and Livestock Awards 🏆 Thank you ICBF
By Highfield Odran out of a Castleview Gringo cow Progressive Genetics

There are 490 herds signed up to the Dairy Gene Ireland Programme, taking a total of 19,628 straws ordered to date. The breeding programme is a key component of the Irish dairy industry, aiming to provide farmers with new genetics and increase the rate of genetic gain in EBI.

ICBF Statistic of the week: 53.4% of calves born from the dairy herd in 2024 are dairy x beef. This is an increase of 13% since 2018. #datadrivenfacts

There's still time to run Sire Advice for 2024. The HerdPlus team can help with the process, and breeding charts can be posted on the same day. A little bit of time spent selecting the right bulls today will affect the profitability of your future herd. #bullselection2024

We have added a filter/flag that highlights on the bull selector stage in Sire Advice which DBI/beef AI sires are eligible for the Dairy Beef Welfare scheme for 2025. This is now live and available for Sire Advice users. Still plenty of time to run Sire Advice. #bullselection2024

With the increasing usage of beef bulls in the dairy herd, we have added a new beef AI usage table to the Weekly Fertility report.
This includes details of beef bulls used in the dairy herd when generating the Weekly Fertility report. icbf.com/new-beef-bull-…

Are you using Dairy or Dairy x Beef Gene Ireland straws this breeding season? Selections now available on Sire Advice. Don't forget to add to your 2024 bull team for optimised matings and to maximise genetic gain. #2024bullselection

This year, in NGP herds, 93.7% of all calves born between 1 January 2024 and 20 March 2024 have been sire verified. In the same cohort of herds before NGP in 2023, only 17.9% of calves born were sire verified.
icbf.com/significant-in…

Sire Advice tool simplifies bull selection, eliminates any inbreeding risk and identifies the optimum matings to maximise genetic gain. The tool identifies optimum beef AI bull matings to minimise calving issues and maximise beef merit. youtu.be/HVqv8nalpas

ICBF Statistic of the week: 5.8% of the dairy x dairy twins genotyped through the #NGP have different sires. #datadrivenfacts

Sexed semen is one of the key measures dairy farmers can take to help reduce methane emissions for the dairy herd. Sexed semen will reduce our reliance on conventional dairy semen, and increase the use of high beef merit semen, icbf.com/sexed-semen/

Table: How much extra money are high CBV calves making? agriland.ie/farming-news/t…