Dairy farmers can now access their dairy beef scorecard report from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), for dairy beef calves born from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.
This new report allows dairy farmers to assess the herd’s dairy beef integration performance.
The report has been developed by ICBF and the Department of Agriculture-led calf stakeholder forum.
ICBF
ICBF says that the aim of the new dairy beef scorecard report is to make herd owners aware of the key performance indicators (KPI’s), that contribute to greater dairy beef integration – which it says is important for sustainable use of resources, increased profitability, and improved animal welfare.
As well as evaluating your herds own dairy beef integration performance, the report allows you to benchmark your herd against the top 10% and national average figures across the ten key KPI’s.
Key KPI’s:
- With a recorded sire;
- With a recorded artificial insemination (AI) sire;
- With a genotype;
- Commercial beef value (CBV) – all calves;
- CBV – dairy male calves;
- CBV – dairy beef calves;
- Carcass average daily gain (A.D.G) dairy males;
- Carcass A.D.G dairy beef females;
- Carcass A.D.G dairy beef males;
- Green house gas (GHG) (Lifetime Co2e/ animal).
The scorecard ranks dairy farmers using a percentage and star-rating system on their involvement in efforts to improve sire recording, carcass performance, utilizing better beef genetics and increasing the level of genotyping in the herd.
Five-star indicates a herd is in the top 20%, while one-star indicates being in the bottom 20%.
This will easily allow herd owners to identify areas for improvement.
ICBF says that dairy beef integration is key component of the economic and environmental sustainability of Irish farms.
The introduction of the new dairy beef scorecard will help to promote greater dairy beef integration and increase the importance of improving the beef merit from the dairy herd.
This will help to ensure a sustainable integration of both the beef and dairy industry.
Dairy beef scorecard
The herd dairy beef quality score is a combination of the following KPI’s (with a recorded sire; with a recorded AI sire; with a genotype; CBV – dairy male calves; CBV – dairy beef calves).
The dairy beef integration statement shows the data and various metrics which are used for the calculation and development of the ten key performance indicators (KPI’s). This is broken down into four tables shown below.
Table one displays the count of dairy beef calves born on the farm from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023.
This is further broken down by the number of dairy beef calves that have a recorded sire, AI Bred, stockbull bred and genotyped calves.
Table two shows the CBV value of dairy beef calves born on the farm, again broken down by the animal type. These counts are taken from table one.
The CBV values are calculated from an individual animal-level for each of the groups and then the overall average figure is displayed.
Where a herd has no CBV for a group of dairy beef calves, (no sires recorded on them) “N/A” will be displayed. This CBV value is calculated from the September 2023 evaluation.
Table three shows the number of dairy beef calves born on the farm and the fate of each these calves.
This is broken down by the number of dairy beef calves that are still on farm, sold and exported, sold and still alive in Ireland, sold to top three herds and mortality 42 days.
Sold to the top three herds is calculated as percentage of sold and still alive in Ireland.
Table four shows the finishing performance of dairy beef calves born on the farm and that were finished between July 1, 2022 to July 30, 2023 in any herd.
Dairy Beef calves must be >12 months at the time of finishing and only steers and heifers are considered. The total column is a weighted average for all the animals