A total of 70% of the calves born in 2024 in Ireland were sired by a beef-breed bull, with the remaining 30% of calves sired by a dairy-breed bull.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's (DAFM's) Animal Identification and Movement System (AIMS) Bovine Statistics Report for 2024, published last week, shows there were 2.34 million (2,339,250) calves born in Ireland in 2024.
Of these, 1.65 million (1,645,403) were sired by a beef-breed bull and 694,000 (693,847) were sired by a dairy-breed bull.
The figures indicate that 70.3% of the 2024 calf crop were beef-sired and 29.6% were dairy-sired calves.
Angus was the most popular beef breed calf sire, with 577,000 Angus-sired calves registered last year, followed by Limousin, with 320,000 calved registered as having a Limousin sire.
Friesian remains the most popular overall sire breed, with 662,000 calves registered as having a Friesian sire in 2024.
Hereford is the third most popular beef sire breed, with 264,000 calves registered to a Hereford bull, followed by Charolais at fourth, with 246,500 Charolais-sired calves registered in 2024, followed by Hereford with 248.
Looking at 2024 calf registrations by dam breed, the figures are essentially reversed with almost 70% (68.3%) of all calves born last year born from dairy cows and 31.7% born to suckler cows.
Almost 742,000 calves were born to beef-breed dams and almost 1.6 million calves were born to dairy-breed dams last year.
The highest number of suckler-bred calves were born in Co. Galway last year at just under 79,000 calves, and Cork had the highest number of calves born from dairy cows at just under 386,000.
Limousin and Charolais were the two most popular sire-breed choices for suckler herds with 265,000 and 231,000 suckler-bred calves born to these sire breeds respectively. Almost 92,000 suckler-bred calves born in 2024 had an Angus sire.
Friesian was the most popular sire breed for dairy cows, followed by Angus and Hereford with 485,000 and 233,000 calves born off the dairy herd last year having these respective sire breeds.