During the Breeding Plan Webinar, as part of Breeding Week, hosted by Teagasc and Irish Cattle Breeding federation (ICBF), Stephen Moore a researcher with Teagasc spoke about the benefits of using high economic breeding index (EBI) sires and improving overall herd EBI.

The EBI is a tool to help identify profitable animals. It has been in existence for almost 20 years, and has been widely adopted by Irish dairy farmers. The current makeup of the EBI is broken down into seven sub indexes.

These include milk production; fertility; calving performance; beef; cow maintenance; cow management; health.

Milk solids production and fertility/survival constitute two-thirds of the emphasis within the EBI with the remaining one-third made up by calving performance, cow maintenance requirements, beef performance, health and management traits.

Target submission rates of 90% of cows and 100% of maiden heifers bred in the first three weeks of the breeding season for a spring-calving herd are both desirable and realistic.

However, the national average in 2019 illustrated only 71% of cows and 78% of heifers being bred during this period.

Stephen stated: ”The benefits of using high fertility sires can be seen by these animals having a lower level of reproduction problems and therefore increased fertility.”

Stephen highlighted research from Teagasc Moorepark that determined that higher EBI animals maintain there body condition score (BCS) better when compared to lower value animals. With an average score of 3.0 compared to 2.75 for lower value animals.

The higher EBI animals have a lower likelihood of developing endometritis at just 25%, compared to 75% up to six-weeks after calving. These females also had a greater cyclicity of 85% vs 20% at six-weeks after calving.

The higher value females also have stronger heats (in some cases 40% greater), when compared to the lower EBI valued animals. Finally, these females also had a superior conception rate to first service (CRFS) of 56% compared to 33%. They also had a higher six-week in-calf rate (ICR) of 72% compared 41% seen in lower EBI valued animals.