Health event recording levels have almost doubled – up a considerable 86% – since 2018, according to the latest data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).
In an update on the matter, the federation explained that health event recording helps to improve the reliability of the health and management traits of both the dairy and beef national herd.
“The continued recording of these traits will better place the Irish dairy and beef sectors to select the next generation of high health, easy management AI [artificial insemination] sires which will ultimately leave more profit for Irish farmers in the future,” the ICBF added.
To give an insight into the changes over the last two years, it was noted that in 2018, there was a total of 75,942 health statistics recorded for the year. In 2020, the number of records recorded in the year rose to 141,083 representing a 86% increase in additional records each year.
Important health traits such as lameness and mastitis have seen big increases in the number of records being recorded, the federation noted.
In 2018, there were 4,926 lameness records recorded. By 2020, there was some 11,635 records being recorded for the year.
Mastitis recording is also on the increase with 23,489 records recorded in 2018. The level of recording stood at 39,309 records/year by 2020.
Continuing, the ICBF said: “It is important that farmers continue to record this valuable data so that it can be factored into future genetic evaluations.
“There is lots of valuable health data locked away in farmer notebooks and unless it’s recorded in the ICBF database, it cannot be factored into future evaluations.
“For example, the total cost of every case of lameness is estimated at €300 once treatment costs and loss of production are all taken into account.
“These are significant losses in profit which could otherwise be going to farmers if addressed,” the ICBF said.
Health data can be recorded under the ‘Record Events’ section in one’s HerdPlus account.