The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has recently published data on the top 10 artificial insemination sires (AI bulls) used on suckler cows this spring.
The data is based on the analysis of insemination data collected from AI technicians linked to the ICBF database, through their AI handheld system.
The data includes AI serves from January to June of this year and also includes the number of serves by sire breed.
The table below details the top 10 most used AI bulls on suckler cows based on total AI handheld serves:
As the table above indicates, Lapon was the most used AI sire on suckler cows in the first half of this year with 5,181 handheld serves recorded.
While a Charolais bull topped the poll, Limousin sires came second and third, with Powerful Proper and Moondharrig Knell taking the second and third most popular respectively. These two bulls had 3,803 and 2,642 serves recorded respectively.
Out of the top 10 most used beef bulls, all of them were tested through the Beef G€N€ IR€LAND breeding Programme, according to ICBF.
There was a total of 74,050 beef serves recorded on handhelds during the first six months of the year. In the same period last year, there was 69,847 beef serves recorded on handhelds.
AI bulls popularity by breed
While a Charolais bull was the most popular sire in the first half of this year, the Limousin sires proved most popular overall with 29,100 serves recorded to Limousin bulls or 39.3% versus the 18,020 serves recorded to Charolais bulls or 24.3%.
The table below details the number and percentage of recorded handheld serves by sire breed on suckler cows in the first six months of 2024:
The third most popular AI sire breed based on handheld serves recorded was Angus accounting for 10,838 of 14.6% of all serves recorded on suckler cows.
Despite being the third most popular AI sire breed, only one Angus bull made it to the Top 10 list.
Intelagri Matteo was the seventh most popular sire with 1,885 serves recorded.