Alan Burton, a dairy farmer from just outside Millstreet in Co Cork, thinks he may be close to a record in terms of the number of cows in a herd that gave birth to twins.

This year, his herd had a twinning rate of over 11%. Of the 107 cows calved in total, 12 cows had a set of twins.

According to ICBF, of all the calvings validated by genotyping only 1.54% of calvings were twins from a dairy sire and 2% of calvings from a beef sire and dairy dam.

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Amazingly, in Alan’s herd, 11 of the sets came in the first 54 cows calved, giving a twinning rate of over 20%.

“Twins aren’t exactly something we want here as it can be hard on the cows, but thankfully health wise things have worked out well so far,” Burton said.

“We only had to handle two of the 12 cows. The vet was required for one set and one cow held on to the cleanings,” he said.

All of the calves were born to artificial insemination (AI) sires, with 10 sets of Friesians, one set of Belgian Blues and one set of Hereford calves.

“We didn’t do anything different than in previous years. We calve early here, starting early in January”.

“Breeding starts in early April and last spring, in the run up to breeding, the cows were on a fodder beet silage, grass and a high-protein nut.

“They were in very good condition at breeding and the local vet, Eamonn O’ Flynn, remarked they were in perfect condition at scanning also,” Burton added.