A recent enquiry by the Irish Farmers Journal to the ICBF has revealed that many of the mandatory surveys recorded by BDGP participants have yet to be included in genetic evaluations.

While some traits such as calving difficulty, cow milk score and cow docility scores are been included in the current evaluations, other information such as calf size is not.

Calf size score currently has 1,363,620 records, with none being used in the make-up of the current €uro-Star runs. This data, once included, is likely to have noticeable implications on current evaluations.

The ICBF states that this data is to be included from 2019 onwards.

This means that the €uro-star calving index is likely to see variations, particularly in the year to come.