The Irish Cattle Breeders Federation (ICBF) has released the list of the most popular bulls for the first six months of the 2022 breeding season.

The results are based on the analysis of insemination data collected from artificial insemination (AI) technicians linked to the ICBF, through their AI handheld system.

Dairy sires

The most popular dairy sire for the 2022 breeding season so far is (IG) Doonmanagh Seville, with 20,413 recorded serves.

Doonmanagh Seville is a National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) bull and has an economic breeding index (EBI) value of €252.

He also topped the list in 2021, when 32,280 straws of his has been used.

The second most-popular sire was Bauravilla Pistol SRM, with 18,406 recorded serves so far this year.

Bauravilla Pistol SRM is also an NCBC bull and has an EBI of €330.

The third-highest number of inseminations recorded was from Ballycarney Denman. Once again, Ballygown Albert is an NCBC bull, with an EBI value of €319.

Source: ICBF

Breeding season

When it comes to breed, Holstein Friesian sires dominated the list, with 522,561 serves recorded.

Coming in 496,159 serves behind are the Jersey sires with 26,402 recorded serves.

Following closely behind this are Friesian sires with 25,485 recorded serves in 2022 so far.

Source: ICBF

Genomic sires (GS) accounted for 72.3% of recorded serves for the first six months of 2022.

The increased use of these sires is recent years has provided major benefits to farmers, most notably through increased genetic gain and profitability.

The average EBI of the GS bulls is €73 and €77 higher than the Irish Daughter-proven bulls (DP-IRL) and the International Daughter proven bulls (DP-INT) respectively. 

Source: ICBF

Beef-on-dairy

Topping the list for beef-on-dairy sires is HW Farghal, with 20,766 recorded serves.

Second highest on the list is Intelagri Matteo ET with 17,349 serves, and third-highest is Intelagri Maverick ET with 17,121 serves.

The top-four sires on this list are Aberdeen Angus.

The top-20 list includes nine Angus, five Hereford, two Limousin and Belgian Blue and one Aubrac and Charolais.

It is not until fifth on the list that we see the first Hereford sire, Fabb 1 Northern Star.

Source: ICBF