The criteria for making the list are as follows:

  • The bull must be genotyped.
  • It must have a reliability percentage for replacement or terminal index of at least 50%.
  • Reliability of calving difficulty of at least 50% (based on 17% heifer rel % and 83% cow rel%).
  • The bull must also have calves in his calving survey evaluation.
  • Understand the terminology

    1 Bull details: Rank, AI code, name, breed, Gene Irl.

    2 Replacement or terminal index: This is the overall single-figure profit index that each bull has. A bull with a replacement index of €200 is expected to sire daughters that are €200 more profitable than the average Irish suckler cow.

    Likewise, the terminal index is an indication of how profitable a bull’s progeny will be when slaughtered.

    3 Reliability %: This figure is an indication as to how confident ICBF can be about the genetic evaluations for a particular bull.

    Progeny of a bull having data recorded on them (calving survey, weights etc), alongside many other animals across large numbers of herds, is what increases a bull’s reliability percentage figure.

    The reliability percentage figures for AI sires are generally higher than that of stock bulls, due to the large number of calves across many herds that they would sire.

    4 Stars across: This shows the percentile ranking of the bull’s index when compared across breed (five stars: top 20%, one star: bottom 20%).

    5 Calving difficulty details: This is the first Active Bull List with the new calving indices.

  • Beef heifer CD% and Beef cow CD%: This shows the calving difficulty percentage figure expected for the bull when used on beef heifers and beef cows. Reliability percentage figures are also shown.
  • Beef calv recs: This shows the number of actual calves sired by each bull that were born in Ireland out of dairy animals, with calving survey records included in evaluations.
  • 6 Gest (days) and gest (rel %): This shows the expected effect on gestation length that the bull will have. The smaller and more negative the breeding value figure, the better.

    7 Daughter milk: Daughter milk is the expected level of milk that daughters of a bull will have. It is expressed in terms of the kg weight gain from the progeny of those daughters (high values desired).

    8 Daughter calving interval: Daughter calving interval is a key measurement of fertility in a bull’s daughters. It is measured in terms of ‘calving interval’ (negative and low values desired).

    9 Carcase weight and carcase conformation: This shows the extra kilograms of carcase and increased conformation that is expected from the progeny of each bull.

    10 Semen details: Availability, price, and supplier details of each bull are included.

    Dairy beef index

    The dairy beef index (DBI) is a tool to produce quality beef cattle from the dairy herd that have both desirable calving attributes for the dairy herd (easy calving and short gestation) and valuable carcase merit attributes for the finisher.

    It does this by ranking beef cattle for use in the dairy herd based on their genetic merit for several traits that are important to dairy-beef production systems (calving and beef traits).

    So, the dairy beef index selects for:

  • Easy calving, short gestation and less calf mortality.
  • Heavier carcases of greater conformation and lower fat scores.
  • Cattle that are polled and docile, with lower feed intake.
  • Using a bull only for his easy calving or short gestation can result in lighter carcases. However, incorporating several traits into selection decisions using an overall index (Dairy Beef Index) can produce more balanced cattle, with more favourable economic returns.

  • Bulls with greater than or equal to 100 dairy calving records are included on the DBI list.
  • Risk of dairy heifer CDiff: This is either ‘low’, ‘moderate’ or ‘high’ and indicates the level of risk associated with calving difficulty when used on dairy heifers. It combines the PTA and the reliability.
  • Out of spec: A very interesting feature on the DBI list is a column showing the percentage of a bull’s progeny that will be out of spec when slaughtered.
  • This was probably the biggest issue before the DBI index was created, as the problem with just selecting very easy-calving bulls was that their progeny were not able to hit the target weights and grades in the factories afterwards.