Chief executive of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) Sean Coughlan has written to 15,000 dairy farmers today to advise them to start thinking and planning for breeding in 2020.

In the letter to herdowners, the boss of the ICBF talks about the new herd EBI scorecard which details a herd’s EBI and the sub-index (traits) breakdown.

The scorecard also gives the top 10% and national average figures and ranks the herd on a national basis using a percentage and star rating system.

Five stars indicates a herd is in the top 20%, while one star indicates the herd being in the bottom 20%.

Sire advice

Once you know where your herd ranks, Coughlan suggests the next step is to turn to use sire advice and use a team of sires across your herd in equal proportions.

In the last few years, some farmers have been using teams of sires, but more sires weighted towards one sire than the other and ending up with the majority of replacements from maybe one or two sires.

The advice is use a minimum of seven sires across the herd equally.

Finally, the letter advises to use AI straws that have better beef characteristics. The letter suggests to breed higher-quality beef-sired animals, select beef AI sires from the dairy beef index (DBI) active bull list that are positive for beef carcase traits.

We will have a full review of breeding 2020 in the spring AI focus in next week's Irish Farmers Journal.

Guidelines

The six-step guideline in the letter from the partners involved in the initiative are:

  • 1. Use teams of high-EBI AI bulls when breeding your dairy herd replacements. A minimum of seven bulls should be used on your herd, with no more than 15% matings to any one bull.
  • 2. Target high-EBI females (typically maiden heifers, first- and second-calvers) to breed your next generation of dairy herd replacements. Lower-EBI cows should be bred to beef AI from the start of the breeding season.
  • 3. Use the dairy beef index to select suitable beef AI sires for your dairy herd. Again, a team of bulls should be used and farmers need to use low-risk calving difficulty sires. Bulls with higher beef merit figures should then be selected for older animals.
  • 4. Know your herd's strengths and weaknesses. Refer to your ICBF herd EBI scorecard to help establish these.
  • 5. Use the ICBF HerdPlus sire advice tool to help manage your breeding programme.

  • 6. If using sexed semen, use high-EBI sires only and use the semen early in the breeding season. Jersey AI should only be used with sexed semen.

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