There have been a number of calls in the last few weeks from farmers and cattle buyers about increasing the amount of information that is displayed on mart boards in marts.

At the moment, the breed of the animal is displayed on the mart board, so if it is an Aberdeen Angus or an Aberdeen Angus-cross animal, it comes up as AA.

Recent changes to legislation mean that the breed of dam of the animal must be printed on the blue identification card.

The issue has arisen where calf agents are purchasing calves for farmers without having the details of the dam of that calf.

The agent then delivers the calf to the farm, the farmer looks at the card and they aren’t happy when they see a Jersey or Jersey-cross cow down as the dam of that calf.

It is a particular problem with young calves, as a lot of these calves will look very similar to Friesian-cross calves at a few weeks of age.

‘Nightmare’

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, calf dealer Paul Rigney said: “It’s making my job a nightmare. The information is in there in the system and I can’t understand why it can’t be put up on the mart board.

Farmers have seen how these Jersey-cross calves perform on-farm and they just don’t want them

“At the moment, I have to go into the mart office to check cards, but a lot of farmers don’t know to do that and a lot of them are getting tricked into buying Jersey genetics when purchasing calves.

“Farmers have seen how these Jersey-cross calves perform on-farm and they just don’t want them. The breed of dam needs to be displayed on the mart board to be fair to everybody,” Paul said.