Dairy Breeding Programme

The sustainable Dairy cow of the future is an animal that is profitable, carbon efficient, healthy, labour efficient and has longevity within the herd. Munster Bovine delivers an impressive selection of the highest genetic merit sires for sustainable and profitable production as well as a technician service which delivers the highest fertility performance that is attainable on your farm.
Through a combination of our superior genetics and herd management services, our goal is to help you improve the profitability and productivity of your dairy herd by producing high value functional calves, achieving a high 6-week calving rate, managing an optimal replacement rate, and maximizing the production of milk solids from grass.

Munster Bovine publishes 3 main dairy catalogues annually:
1.    Spring-Based Dairy Catalogue
2.    High-Type Autumn Catalogue
3.    The Alternative Breeds Catalogue. 

Within each production system, these catalogues have been specifically designed to showcase the superior genetics available from our domestic breeding programme (NCBC) as well as the highest genetic merit sires available internationally. Our objective here at Munster Bovine is to enable Irish herd owners to be sustainable and profitable within their own production system and equip them to meet the key challenges ahead.

Dairy Beef Breeding Programme

The National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) runs the largest beef on dairy programme (BOD) in Ireland, for Munster Bovine and Progressive Genetics domestically and Ireland Genetics (IG) Internationally.  

NCBC runs a specialised beef on dairy testing programme, the focus is profitability for both the dairy farmer and beef finisher, sustainability and animal welfare.  

The NCBC beef on dairy programme has a two-fold goal in line with our policy of supporting and promoting circular farming:

1. To identify the most suitable beef bull genetics for crossing on the dairy herd with a focus on:
   
   Calving Ease, Short gestation, Calf Quality, Calf Vitality, Polledness, Ability to suck and Coat Colour.

2. Improve the efficiency, profitability and sustainability of dairy X beef production from grass by identifying sires suitable for crossing on the dairy herd while maximising:
   
   Carcass Weight, Carcass Conformation, Early age at slaughter, Feed Efficiency and Meat eating quality.  

The Dairy Beef Index (DBI)  aids us select sires which deliver high quality beef cattle bred from the dairy herd that are more saleable as calves and profitable at slaughter yet, they have minimal consequences on the calving difficulty or gestation length of the dairy cow. Attention is also paid to the Carbon Sub-Index in line with our goal to produce beef from the dairy herd in the most sustainable way possible.

The NCBC BoD programme is growing year on year.  One thousand doses of each bull is used the first year. Only sires with a high level of field fertility and acceptable level of calving ease and gestation length are used in year two.  The proven sires that graduate from our programme are balanced sires with good calving ease, short gestation and high carcass traits.  The success of the NCBC BOD breeding programme in the past ten years has meant that calving ease has been maintained, gestation length markedly improved and carcass quality markedly improved i.e. we are producing more valuable beef progeny from the dairy herd without increasing the level of calving difficulty. Our proven beef on dairy sires excel in calving ease and short gestation and produce high performance progeny from the dairy herd which consistently meet the market specifications.

Beef Breeding Programme

The National Cattle Breeding Centre (NCBC) runs the largest beef programme in Ireland, for Munster Bovine and Progressive Genetics domestically and Ireland Genetics (IG) Internationally.  
The beef programme has two elements:

(i) Terminal which delivers proven bulls for profitable weanling and finishing systems

(ii) Maternal which delivers proven bulls to breed replacements for the suckler herd

Terminal Programme

Superior genomically tested sires are selected from performance recorded herds. One thousand doses of each bull is used the first year. Only sires with a high level of field fertility and acceptable level of calving ease are used in year two.  Their progeny are performance
recorded on farm where weight gain, muscle development docility and functionality are assessed.  15-20 progeny are finished in Tully Performance Test Centre where performance, feed efficiency and methane production are recorded on live animals and meat eating quality is assessed at slaughter.

Carcass weight, conformation and fat cover are recorded on all progeny at slaughter.

The superior proven terminal sires excel in calving ease, docility, performance at both weaning and finishing stage, have superior carcass traits and early age at slaughter.  

Maternal Programme

Superior genomically tested sires are selected from performance recorded herds. One thousand doses of each bull is used the first year, only sires with a high level of field fertility and acceptable level of calving ease are used in year two. In addition to the traits measured for the terminal programme, daughters fertility , calving ability and milk production are assessed.

The superior proven maternal sires have daughters with superior docility, fertility, calving ability and milk production. They wean superior heavier weanlings, last longer in the herd and have superior calving intervals.  Daughters of NCBC proven maternal sires are highly profitable females.