Many farmers will be familiar with ICBF bull search for looking up a bull’s current rating. However, the active bull list gives a comparable list of bulls all on the one page, depending on what a farmer is looking for.
Farmers can enter the criteria they are seeking in a bull and a list of available bulls from all the leading AI companies will appear. It is a useful system to rank bulls according to their evaluations.
There are two available lists: for replacement, which is aligned more closely with maternal traits, and the terminal list, which favours bulls that have more beef traits.
The list is available on the ICBF website.
One of the best tools on the active bull list is for ranking animals within their own breed, a very important ranking selection, as opposed to across all breeds – as many farmers will favour one breed.
Table 1 shows a selection of the top proven terminal index bulls available across a number of the most common breeds. A maximum price of €30/straw has been selected to make the list relevant to the majority of commercial farmers.
Furthermore, farmers can filter bulls based on sub-index. For example, if a farmer wanted to select bulls based solely on carcase weight, they can be filtered by highest to lowest based on the carcase weight figure. This filter can be done for all traits.
Alternatively, farmers can select the range within which each trait may vary, setting a minimum figure on what traits they deem desirable, and the list of bulls will be filtered to suit accordingly.
For example, a filter could be used where a farmer selects bulls with a minimum carcase weight figure of 35kg, while having a maximum calving difficulty of 7% and all available bulls with these figures will be filtered.
As farmers use more terminal genetics in autumn breeding, we have just profiled the top terminal bulls.
Below is a list of top replacement index bulls farmers could select from for replacements.
SHARING OPTIONS