Northern Ireland milk processors produce mainly commodity dairy products destined for export markets, with only 12% to 14% of milk destined for a liquid milk market.

This breakdown of products is similar to the Republic of Ireland. However, the larger split of liquid or fresh milk relative to manufacturing milk in the UK has somewhat skewed the type of milking cow on Northern farms in favour of bigger, larger-volume cows relative to smaller, higher-milk-solids cows in the south.

Northern Ireland dairy farmers don’t have access to information from the Republic’s national cattle database or contact with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

Instead, DairyCo (UK) provides the platform for bull lists and reports. In the main, the technical breeding information for farmers is supplied by UK service providers.

On farms in Northern Ireland, sires are selected mainly from catalogues, but increasingly some farmers are selecting from indices. This is similar to the way the Republic’s farmers select sires ranked on EBI.

It’s fair to say the AI industry in Northern Ireland is in transition to more index breeding, rather than selecting individual bulls that might breed daughters that may enter the show ring.

The Profitable Lifetime Index (PLI) (£) has shifted away from selecting sires on “type” and “watery milk” to more milk solids and more health and fertility traits.

On farm, you often hear of milk yields in excess of 8,000 litres per cow, fed three tonnes of meal per cow with less than 2,000 litres produced from forage (mostly silage).

The Northern Ireland figures suggest average yield is closer to 7,100 litres per cow as calving interval is closer to 410 days than 365. Hence the larger yield is per lactation, rather than per year, so the average figure is lower.

The stock bull is probably still the main competitor for AI sales in Northern Ireland, as farmers struggle to manage the all-year- round breeding and large numbers of cows bred indoor during the winter months.

However, those farmers using AI should make sure they are using the right bulls – selected on index (EBI or PLI) and getting improvements in milk solids and fertility.

The significant shift away from milk produced from forage and the shift to a longer calving interval all point in the wrong direction for an industry built on hard work and commitment.

Worldwide selection indices have changed to include more health and fertility traits, but the UK has been slow to get on that train.

The other major challenge for the industry is getting farmers to select sires using the index. Ignoring the index and selecting on type or milk volume is far too prevalent among Northern and UK farmers, so all providers need to develop a plan highlighting the benefits and rewards.

It’s a case of back to basics for most Northern farmers, as the majority need to get back to measuring submission and pregnancy rates. Calving interval is historic and shows what is happening from year to year, but to make change you need tight handles on pregnancy rates.

At farm level, there are very contrasting situations on the Dairylink farms this week (see table), with the spring-calving farms reducing the number of cows milked while the autumn-calving herds are increasing the number milked and getting ready for breeding, which starts in the next two weeks.

Nigel Corbett Co Down

Our silage quality is quite good this year, and we are feeding second-cut silage now. Our problem is we don’t have enough cows calved at this time. In autumn production, you need to have enough cows calved to get the bonus during the peak winter months, and our herd fertility simply hasn’t been good enough for the last number of years.

The other impact of poor fertility is that it we couldn’t generate enough replacements to maintain or grow the herd. Poor fertility in the milking cows and a low number of replacements mean it’s very hard to make progress. We had about 15 cows calved in November and have about 15 to calve in December. We have picked five sires from the top of the EBI list and we are going to use them on the milking cows starting the second week in December.

Kevin McGrade Co Tyrone

The dry weather makes it easier to work around the farm, but doesn’t do much for us at this time of the year, as the grazing season is closed. Tomorrow (Thursday) we start breeding with the milking herd. On 1 November we started recording how many cows we saw in heat, which was 101, and last week we scanned the 24 cows that we hadn’t seen in heat. The scan resulted in our washing out two cows and putting CIDRs into three. The remaining 19 will be OK and were clean when scanned.

In total, we have 136 cows to calve, with 125 calved and 11 yet to calve. The 11 yet to calve are on very shaky ground as to whether they stay in the herd. Five or six will calve in the next few weeks, and maybe we will get a straw into some of those, but at best it will happen towards the tail-end of the breeding season.

The AI sires selected were BARTLIE YAB, JMR, Derrylamogue Vincent FR 2036, Ruddy FR 2386 (crossbred), Nextgen Candy FR 2385 and Whisper FR2056. Most are young sires with EBI over €300 and a mix of Holstein and Friesian genetics. CIDRS went into maiden heifers on 14 November. They got 2ml Estrumate seven days later and CIDRS came out the following day, breeding to AI on 24 November. Sires were KZK and JMR. Average weight was 338kg, with four under 320kg.