Dairy breeding tips for the coming season
Have you selected your AI bull team for the 2025 breeding season? Niamh Lynch, a Dairy Advisor based in Teagasc Longford, has some key tips to make this task easier.
A lot of effort goes into selecting the AI bulls being used on dairy farms each year. However, is there enough effort in choosing which cows in the herd you breed from? The bull is only half the story, and choosing the right cows is also vital.
In order to achieve high genetic replacements from your own herd, it is important to be more selective in the cows we breed from. This can be achieved by looking at milk recording and Economic Breeding Index (EBI) data.
Taking time now to identify the top cows in your herd to breed from using EBI and milk recording data will have a large positive effect on the genetic merit and subsequent performance of next year’s replacement heifer calves. The balance of the herd can be bred to high merit beef sires to produce saleable calves.
Key steps:
- Select a bull team
- Select a team of high EBI AI bulls from the ICBF dairy active bull list to breed your dairy herd replacements. Use the team of bulls equally with no more than 15% of matings to any individual bull to minimise genetic and fertility risks. For a typical 100 cow dairy herd, at least 8 bulls should be used, with no more than 15 straws (i.e., 15% of matings) to any individual bull
- Use the ICBF HerdPlus Sire Advice Tool
- The ICBF HerdPlus Sire Advice Tool will simplify the process of bull selection and identify the optimum mating for both dairy and beef bulls. The tool will allocate dairy bulls to cows based on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as to manage inbreeding. The tool also identifies the optimum beef AI bull mating to minimise calving issues and maximise beef merit.
- Use the ICFB Dairy-Beef Active bull list
- To ensure saleable, profitable, and sustainable dairy-beef cattle are generated, use beef AI bulls from the ICBF Dairy-Beef Active bull list. It’s recommended to firstly select bulls with a calving difficulty percentage range suitable for the females being mated, i.e., first calvers, second calvers, mature cows, and then select bulls with the highest Beef sub-index value.
- Know how many replacements you need
- Carrying too many replacements each year comes at a cost. The target replacement rate for a stable herd size is 18-20%. Allowing for losses up to breeding, 22 dairy heifers born per 100 cows is a more appropriate target.