A number of farmers have claimed to have experienced delays in receiving their results on genotype information for calves born this autumn.
Calving is well underway on autumn calving dairy farms where calves are coming thick and fast, yet the genotype information is not coming at the same pace.
The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has confirmed to Agriland that there has been “some technical issues recently” in getting the genotype information back to farmers.
The National Genotyping Programme (NGP) is a collaborative initiative enabling Ireland to take the first step in achieving a fully genotyped national herd.
The programme, administered by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), is based on a cost-sharing model between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), the beef and dairy industry and participating farmers.
DNA samples of calves are sent to the ICBF Genotype Laboratory, PO Box 1104, Naas Mail Centre, Co. Kildare, but have not been swift to make a return this autumn.
The ICBF told Agriland that it is “currently looking into this issue”, to try and get the problem sorted and genotype results back to farmers as soon as possible.
Genotype
There were concerns last spring with the length of time it was taking for the passports to come back to farmers, which hindered farmers selling on the calves.
In response to these concerns last spring, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) said that it was making a number of improvements to the NGP in response to concerns raised by farmers.
To rectify the issues experienced last year, the ICBF implemented issuing the calf’s passport automatically when the sample hits 10 days in the lab, to relieve any concerns about moving animals in a timely fashion.
The typical timeline getting your DNA samples back according to the ICBF is as follows
- Day 1 – Calf is born and tagged and the calf’s DNA sample is sent to the lab;
- Day 3 – Sample is received in the DNA lab and acknowledged;
- Day 8 – Parentage confirmed and communicated with DAFM/farmer;
- Day 11 – Calf’s passport arrives in the post.
Where the genotype results have been slow to come back, the ICBF has been offering to send out the passport first and the genotype results will follow.
However, it is understood that farmers have been experiencing delays in getting the passport of the calves back which has affected selling on the calves.
The problem with delaying the selling process is that farmers have 42 days to move calves off farm, otherwise they are required to carry out a bovine tuberculosis (bTB) test which would involve an additional cost and hassle.
Genotyping is essential for driving the genetics of any herd and getting a through picture of the DNA of your herd, but there should be no delay in the farmer getting this information along with the passport back.
The autumn calving season is a lot quieter than the spring calving season, and a problem occurring like this can nearly go unnoticed in the autumn time but would be a disaster if it was to happen in the spring of 2025.