Over the next few months, dairy farmers all over Ireland will be looking at picking their bulls for next season.

I’m hearing reports of the availability of some bulls becoming scarce, particularly those that are available sexed.

For me, there are a couple of overriding principles that farmers should be aware of when it comes to picking bulls.

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The first is to ensure progress by picking bulls that are better than the herd average in the key traits. In simple terms, this can be ensured by picking bulls that are higher EBI than the cows they are going on.

However, in practice most bulls are higher EBI than cows, so that threshold is not very hard to hit.

Just using the top two or three bulls in terms of EBI is not good practice either. This is because farmers need to use a wide team of bulls from multiple different sire lines to ensure they are covered in the event of a sire’s EBI falling as his proof becomes daughter proven.

For me, most farmers should be picking eight to 12 bulls from the top 80 or 90 bulls on the EBI list of bulls.

The difference in EBI between the top bull and the bull at number 80 on the list may be €70, but given the reliability in these figures of 60% or so, there will be fluctuations at individual bull level which may be more or less than €70.

Aside from EBI, individual traits are also worthy of consideration. For example, if a farmer is adamant that they don’t want big cows, then they shouldn’t be using bulls with a low maintenance sub-index as these bulls breed big cows.

Similarly, if the herd currently has a high predicated transmitting ability (PTA) for fat and protein percent, using a bull that is lower than the herd average for both will result in the genetic ability for fat and protein percent declining over time.

The EBI for all animals changed last September when ICBF and Teagasc changed the base cow and the economic values in the EBI.

It’s important to keep this in mind as the values for all bulls has now changed, so if comparing a catalogue from last year to a current catalogue the values will be lower, even though in real terms the bull’s EBI may have increased.

Ballycampion Dannyboy tops the list of EBI for bulls at the November EBI evaluation with an EBI of €329.