Suckler farmers continued the gradual switch to Limousin and Aberdeen Angus sires in 2018.

Limousin was used as sire on 37.3% of beef cows, according to the Department of Agriculture’s AIM Bovine Statistics Report 2018, now published. This was up from 35.9% in 2016 and 37.1% in 2017.

Charolais is slowly losing out. The breed was used on 31.4% of beef cows in 2018, compared to 33.4% in 2016 and 31.7% in 2017.

Aberdeen Angus bulls were used on 10.8% of suckler cows in 2018, up from 10.1% in 2016 and 10.7% in 2017.

Simmental use continues to slowly increase and sired 5.8% of cows in 2018.

Friesian bulls were used on 51.7% of dairy cows, compared with 56.9% in 2016 and 52.1% in 2017. Use of Aberdeen Angus bulls on dairy cows increased marginally. The breed was used on 20.7% of dairy cows in 2018, up from 18.5% in 2016 and 20.6% in 2017.

Hereford bulls were used on 14.9% of dairy cows. This compares with 12.3% and 14.5% in 2017. Jersey sires were used on 2.5% of cows in 2018, up from 1.7% in 2016 and 2.1% in 2017.

Cattle population

Overall, there were 6,483,043 cattle in the country at the start of 2019, down 80,867 or 1.2% on a year earlier. The biggest drop was in Cork, where cattle numbers fell by 18,703 to 977,099. Friesian numbers fell there by over 20,000 head.

They fell in other big dairy counties too, including Tipperary, Limerick and Kerry. Cattle throughput at marts fell 77,663 head or 4.2% to 1,732,832.

The number of cattle that didn’t sell at sales rose slightly to 158,648 head. Farm-to-farm cattle sales fell 10%, or 136,493 head to 1,180,950.