The national cattle population has continued to increase in recent years, according to a table recently released by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

Two tables have been made public by the ICBF detailing the national dairy youngstock figures and the national beef young stock figures over the past decade.

The figures for each respective year were recorded as of June 1, that year.

The tables below show the national dairy and beef youngstock population figures over the past ten years:

Source: ICBF

Beef youngstock

According to the table above, the total beef youngstock number for 2021 as of June 1, stood at 3,376,960.

This figure decreased 0.78% from 3,403,656 in 2020. However, this figure has been on the rise over the past 10 years, having increased by 10.3% since 2012, according to ICBF.

It must be noted that beef youngstock figures include all animals with a beef-bred sire.

An analysis of the figures shows the number of beef females is up 152,867 over the past 10 years, while the number of beef males has also seen an increase, by 162,644 over the same period.

Dairy stock

According to the table above, the total dairy youngstock numbers for 2021 as of June 1, stood at at 1,436,907.

This figure has increased 5% from the figure of 1,368,921 in 2020.

However, looking at the numbers over the past decade, this figure has been trending sideways over the past 10 years and does not show any major up or downward trend in numbers.

Looking at the number of dairy females in particular, we see that figure is up 70,522 over the past 10 years, while the number of dairy males has fallen by 43,618 over the same period.