The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has released data which outlines the top 10 artificial insemination (AI) beef sires for the second half of 2023.
ICBF data shows that 32,832 calves that were born after August 1, 2023 were registered to AI sires.
According to the ICBF, during the second half of 2023, some 157,847 suckler beef calves (beef sire bred to beef dam) were born on Irish farms – of which 32,832 were registered to an AI sire.
This represents approximately 20% of all suckler beef calves born during this period.
The list is dominated by well-proven Charolais and Limousin sires, along with one Belgian Blue.
The 10 sires listed have an average replacement index of €107, with relatively high reliability across all of the sires.
Beef sires
The data released from the ICBF shows that the Charolais bull, Lapon, came out on top.
The National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) bull had 2,584 progeny registered to him during the six-month period, which is over 200 more than the bull in second place.
Image: Progressive Genetics
Lapon has a replacement index of €64, a terminal index of €152 and has a dairy beef index (DBI) of €141.
Second place went to Limousin bull, Ewdenvale Ivor, who is a Dovea sire with 2,372 progeny born in the six month period.
Ewdenvale Ivor has a replacement index of €153, a terminal index of €146 and a dairy beef index of €163.
Image: Dovea Genectics
The sire with the third highest number of progeny born in the period is Powerful Proper, with 1,261 progeny.
The Limousin NCBC sire has a replacement index of €99, terminal index of €102 and a DBI of €135.
Image: Progressive Genetics
The only Belgian Blue sire on the list is An De Beauffaux and is in eighth place, with 643 progeny.
A Dovea Genetics sire he has a replacement index of €36, a terminal index of €93 and a DBI of €43
Top ten
The top 10 sires account for 36% of all of the AI suckler progeny born in the second half of 2023.
ICBF said that it is encouraging that six of the 10 sires, and all of the top four listed, have graduated from Gene Ireland over the years. It said that this statistic highlights the value of the programme for consistently progeny testing young high impact sires.
It also said that this helps to drive the rate of genetic gain, while building high reliability indexes at a young age on the back of robust data recording.