Ireland has the highest bovine sexed semen conception rates in the world, according to National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) CEO Doreen Corridan.

“The advantage of the high fertility that’s innate in our current dairy herd at the moment is that we’re getting the highest conception rates worldwide with sexed semen,” she said, speaking at an Irish Grain and Feed Association (IGFA) conference in Portlaoise last Thursday.

Corridan’s presentation focused on breeding dairy cows for improved lifetime performance.

The sustainable cow of the future, Corridan said, has to be profitable.

“Profitable is number one, [the cow has to be] carbon efficient, labour efficient, healthy, live a long life and continually produce a calf of value.

“So whether that calf is a replacement for the dairy herd or whether it’s a beef calf going into the beef herd – both of them have to be of value,” said Corridan.

“When we look to the sustainable cow in the future, and when we look at the overall lifetime performance, we need – as well looking at kilos of milk solids produced – to look at the value of the calves they produced,” she added.

Replacements

Corridan said that close to over 30% of the replacement herd in Ireland at the moment is coming from the use of sexed semen.

“The big advantage of sexed semen for the dairy herd owner is a better probability of getting a heifer calf from his higher EBI cows but also the reduction of the male calf [numbers],” she said.

Sexed semen uptake, she added, results in an overall reduction in dairy male calves from 30% to 3% of the calf population.

Beef calf numbers

According to Corridan, last year was the first year beef calves from the dairy herd surpassed the number of dairy calves from the dairy herd.

“Beef from the dairy herd has doubled from 2013 up to the very present. Beef from the dairy herd is hitting over 65% of total beef. Angus and Hereford account for 85% of this,” she said.