Calf registrations have reached 842,895 head for 2025, with 158,142 calves registered in the past week based on Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) data.

The data from ICBF applies to calves that were registered before March 7.

This time last year, some 899,759 head had been registered, with registrations down by nearly 56,864 compared to the same time last year.

No doubt, registrations are behind from this time last year as the calving start date for a lot of farmers seemed to be pushed back to a week or two into February.

This later calving date nationally is partially due to the poor weather experienced in February in recent years with poor grass growth rates.

The later calving date allows farmers to turn cows out to grass in more favourable ground and growing conditions, potentially suiting the grass growth curve on the farm better in many cases.

Calf registrations are beginning to catch up on last year's figures thanks to this later calving start date, as 158,142 calves were registered last week which is only 290 head behind the same week last year.

Based on the data, 742,633 calves have been registered to dairy dams, down by 49,524 head compared to 2024.

For this week (ending March 7), 137,526 calves were registered to dairy dams, which when compared to the same week last year is actually up by 752 head which shows that the later calving start date is beginning to boost dairy births.

Calves registered to beef dams number 100,262 so far this year.

For the same period in 2024, some 107,602 calves had been registered to beef dams, with numbers down by 7,340 head.

For the week ending March 7, 20,616 calves were registered which is slightly lower than 2024 registrations in the same week which stood at 21,658 head for the same period.

In terms of the National Genotyping Programme (NGP), week 10 of 2025 has seen a continuation of the large volume of samples going through the genotyping lab, according to the ICBF.

As of March 5, 374,223 samples were received in the lab with 89,039 calf samples received into the lab last week.

85,338 calf samples were processed in the lab and the average time from birth to sample being processed in the lab was eight days.

The average time a sample spent in the lab was 4.2 days according to the ICBF and the average turnaround time from birth to passports being issued remain at 13 days.

The ICBF have urged farmers to contact their nominated tag supplier to order more envelopes if they are running low.