The most used sires to date in 2025 on dairy farms has been revealed by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

The breeding season is well and truly over for the spring calving herds, and autumn calving herds now may be interested in what sires are proving the most popular this year before breeding in December.

It might be interesting to see how these sires fair out when the Economic Breeding Index (EBI) changes are brought into play at some stage this month.

One thing that was obvious from the 2025 breeding season and is evident in the top 20 dairy bulls used so far this year was the strong emphasis on bulls that are positive on milk.

There still seems to be a strong focus on milk solid percentages, but many artificial insemination (AI) companies had stated earlier this year that there is certainly more of a focus on milk kilos this year, which in turn drives on solids production.

Below is a list of the top 20 dairy sires with the most serves recorded to date in 2025, ranked from top to bottom:

Out of the 20 top bulls used this year, only one bull had a negative milk kg figure, highlighting the emphasis for milk this year, and only one bull was slightly below the 30kg of accumulative fat and protein kg.

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

The number one most used dairy bull this year is FR8709 (IG)Olcastletown Mojo with 33,517 serves recorded

The second most used bull dairy bull this year is FR7929 (IG) Tankardsrock Teak, with 33,141 serves recorded.

To date in 2025, 734,120 dairy AI serves have been recorded which is a huge increase in the number of dairy AI serves in 2024 and should aid in recovering the number of replacement dairy heifers on the ground.

The dairy AI usage this year will recover the number of dairy heifer calves born on farm for the spring of 2026 back to 2021 levels due to overall dairy AI usage and in particular the increased uptake of sexed semen, which does not require the same number of straws per heifer calf born.

With the increased usage of dairy AI on the dairy herd and in particular the increased uptake of sexed semen usage, there has been a slight dip in the number of beef serves to the dairy herd, but numbers still remains above 2023 levels.

Below is a list of the top 15 beef sires used in the dairy herd, with the most serves recorded to date in 2025, ranked from top to bottom:

The number one most used beef bull in dairy herds this year is AA6682- Hw Lord Horatio V538, with 46,669 serves recorded.

The second most used beef bull in dairy herds this year is HE9382 – Gouldingpoll 1 Nijinsky PP, with 23,505 serves recorded.