The total number of calf registrations up until March 8, 2024 has reached 874,561 head, based on data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).
There were 103,511 calves registered in the week ending March 8, with 13,930 registered to beef dams and 89,581 registered to dairy dams.
Compared to the same week in last year (2023), when 138,873 head were registered. The number of calves registered this week compared to then is down 35,362 head.
Overall registrations for the year-to-date are down 42,007 head.
Calf registrations
A total of 770,615 calves have been registered to dairy dams for the year-to-date, which is down slightly on the same period in 2023.
For the same period in 2023, some 795,409 head had been registered.
Calves registered to beef dams has reached 103,946 head for the year-to-date, which is also down on 2023 figures.
At this stage in 2023, a total of 121,159 head had been registered to beef dams, which means there has been a decrease of 17,213 head for the year-to-date.
Genotyping programme
The National Genotyping Programme (NGP) is now in week 10. As of Tuesday, March 5, a total of 340,503 calf samples have been received in the lab.
There has been 304,444 passports issues from the programme, and 317,764 calf samples have been genotyped up until March 5.
The latest update from the programme showed some improvement in the time it was taking for samples to be processed.
With the ICBF stating that on average, it was taking 12.2 days from birth to passport being issues, which is a reduction of 1.1 days from week nine when it was taking 13.3 days.
The average time from birth to sample being received in the lab was 7.2 days. This is a slight increase on week nine, when it was taking 6.9 days on average.
The average time a sample spent in the lab last week was 4.2 days, which is done 0.5 of days on week nine.
In week 10, some 58,762 calf samples were received in the lab, and 69,369 calf samples were processed in the lab.