According to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), a total of 1.7 million dairy and beef calves have been registered this year.

As for the dairy industry, this year almost 1.24 million dairy calves were registered at dairy farms. This is 1.8% or 21,438 more than in the same period last year.

A year earlier, the number of dairy cows reached almost 1.5 million heads, which is 48,200 heads or 3.4% more than in 2017.

If you look at the weekly figures, the picture is as follows: registrations of dairy calves are behind the same week last year (the week ending May 17) by 22 310 heads compared with 28 242 heads a year earlier, which represents a fall of 5 941 goals

Despite an increase in the total number of births of calves, the number of births of beef calves by 36.234 heads or 7% lags behind this period last year - by 483 594 heads, and it is expected that the total number of registrations of beef will decrease throughout 2019.

One of the main reasons for this drop in fertility is the decline in livestock in Ireland. The Central Statistical Bureau (CSO) found that the number of other cows decreased by 3.1% between 2017 and 2018 and by 2.1% between 2016 and 2017.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is still relatively early to draw final conclusions for this year, and even more calving of beef will occur during the year.