Dairygold AI respond to farmers concerns

Written by Donald Cronin
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Dairygold AI Branch has been forced to make serious changes to their dairy bull selection for the upcoming breeding season following strenuous complaints from milk producers. Dairy farmers throughout Ireland expressed deep dissatisfaction with the quality of bulls being offered by the southern AI station at a number of recent meetings. Although Dairygold had a draft brochure of this season's sires, they bowed to farmer pressure and have introduced a number of new young, unproven bulls to the list. Farmers' concerns centred on the low EBI of the bulls from Dairygold's original selection. This was particularly the case in the 'standard' and 'economy' panels. The EBI in the standard panel ranged from 119 to 92, while it went as low as 72 in the economy section. Farmers heavily indicated at the meetings with Dairygold AI that they would not undermine their breeding programmes by using the bulls on offer and would source better quality sires from other AI providers. One farmer in particular said the bulls being offered would do nothing to address the issue of increasing calving periods on farms, adding that the bulls chosen would, in fact, contribute to the problem. "The bulls just weren't strong enough. The bull of the day would have been rubbish," the farmer claimed. Dairygold are now responding to farmers' concerns by promoting seven young bulls to the list. These include BYJ, MHO, CJI, KRI and LNH. The bulls have EBIs of 197, 131, 124, 161 and 127 respectively. While all seven sires do have low reliability at the moment, as their first crops of heifers are only now coming into herds, it is felt that they all have excellent potential. However Dairygold AI General Manager, Dr Pat Mulvehill, denied there were any major problems with the bull list, claiming that the changes were part of ' the process in drawing up the Dairygold bull list.'

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