The Dealer was looking for a good beef bull to stick on a few of the late calvers. As I flicked through the latest LIC bull semen catalogue, I spotted a Hereford bull (HE7314) with a +39kg for carcase weight.

The catalogue said this carcase weight figure put him in the top 90%, which I’m not sure is that good, depending on where you are within those 90 percentage points.

On closer examination, the same bull is actually -3.4kg for carcase weight according to the ICBF index in an Irish context. The 39kg figure was a different index used in other countries. Very confusing indeed.