The latest data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) shows that 1,148,854 cows have been milk recorded so far this year.

That is a total of 9,146 dairy herds recorded in the year to date, out of more than 15,000 herds in total in Ireland.

That means there is more than 6,000 herds who have not carried out milk recording in the 2025 season.

According to the ICBF data, an additional 9,669 cows were milk recorded this year compared to last year.

Herd performance

In the first week of December, more than 62,000 cows were milk recorded from 603 herds, as some farmers prepare for drying off while others kick off the winter milking season.

The cows recorded in the last week are averaging 15.17kg of milk per cow.

They are averaging 4.04% protein and 5.03% fat for the recorded timeframe of November 25 to December 5.

This equates to 1.35kg/milk solids/cow/day at an average lactose level of 4.53% for the recorded time frame.

The average somatic cell count (SCC) for these herds has risen to 209, up from 170 in the month prior.

This climbing SCC is a sign of environmental bacteria causing issues on farms, which must be looked at to prevent any cases of mastitis.

Milk recording

Milk recording at this of the year is hugely beneficial for a number of reasons.

The majority of Irish dairy farmers run spring calving systems and will therefore be drying the herd off during this month.

Following a series of milk recordings over the year, one final recording will let you know where your herd stands in terms of SCC.

This will help determine which cows will get sealer only as part of your selective dry cow therapy.

It will also help decipher which cows may be put forward for culling, as any millionaires (cows with over a 1,000,000 cells/ml) in the herd should be moved on, or else they will continue to cause spikes in the herd's overall SCC readings.

Always consider the Nitrates Banding and stocking rate of the farm when culling cows to not fall out of your threshold.

Farmers who are winter milking can also decipher which cows not to breed to if SCC is remaining a problem.

However, they will also be recording to understand the herd's production performance, and making adjustments to diets to continue pushing solids.