The number of dairy cows in Ireland has increased 7.9% year-on-year, the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show.

Looking at the figures for June 2016 compared to June 2015, there was an increase of 102,100 dairy cows in Ireland, bringing the total number of dairy cows to 1.39m in the country.

Overall, the total number of cattle in the country was up 3.7% to 7.2m an increase 257,700 head on June 2015.

The number of beef cows also increased on June 2015, by 2.6% to 1.1m following a drop last year of 4.7% on June 2014.

The CSO figures show that the number of bulls used for breeding purposes only was down 31.4% to 25,000 head.

This decrease followed a drop in the number of bulls last year on 2014 of 10.6%.

Decreases were also seen in the number of male and female cattle over two years of age. The number of male cattle over two years was down 7.7% and there was a 15.6% drop in the number of female category in this category compared to last year.

As of June 2016, the number of female cattle in the country stood at 4.8m (+3.5%) while the number of male cattle stood at 2.3m (+4%).

dairy-cow-numbers-2016

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the CSO show that milk production in July in Ireland increased by 2.5% to 788.3m litres.

The total volume of milk sold for human consumption also jumped by 3.2% to 44.6m litres, while butter production declined by 14.7% to 19,300t.

Official figures also show that milk production increased considerably during the first seven months of the year.

Between January and July, Irish creameries collected 4,386.4m litres of milk, up 8.8% from the 4,031.4m litres produced during the corresponding time in 2015.