Despite being open for less than a week, the G€N€ IR€LAND spring 2014 beef programme has had more than 222 herds sign up, taking a total of 4,650 straws.

Niall Kilrane of ICBF said: “This is a positive signal for the national suckler herd as suckler farmers are actively seeking to breed maternal replacements using top maternal bulls. Suckler farmers now believe in the indexes and are keen to use young high index bulls coming through the program.”

In late 2012, ICBF in partnership with the beef herdbooks and the AI industry launched a new breeding programme to identify elite maternal bulls, called the G€N€ IR€LAND Maternal Bull Breeder Programme.

Participating herds have undertaken to record high levels of accurate data on their animals and also to place more emphasis on maternal traits when choosing bulls to mate with their cows.

The main focus for purchasing bulls was on identifying bloodlines with the greatest chance of producing top-quality replacement heifers to enter suckler herds.

Over 1,000 doses of semen have been collected from the 18 bulls in the program.

With 500 per sire being made available, a total of 9,000 straws are available to farmers who sign up to the program, with over 50% sold in week one.