As the mid-point of the year approaches, the number of calf births that have been registered with the Irish Cattle Breeders Federation (ICBF) is nearing the two million mark.
The latest live figures, for the week ending June 21, show that 1,977,110 calves, including both beef and dairy calves, have been registered.
This is back on the total number of calf births registered at the same point last year, which was 2,009,544.
This represents a decrease of 32,434 on the 2023 figure to this point of the year.
The decrease in births for this year so far is down to the decrease in beef births.
Total beef births for 2024 as of last Friday stood at 509,063, down from the figure of 543,041 as of the same time of 2023.
This is decrease of 33,978.
Looking at dairy births, the 2024 figure is higher than last year, though there is much less of a variation in terms of the numbers registered.
So far this year there have been 1,468,047 dairy births, an increase on the 1,466,503 figure at the same point of 2023.
This gives an increase of 1,544 this year on last year.
Taking last week in isolation, there were a total of 25,159 births across both dairy and beef, a decrease on the figure for the same week of 2023, which was 28,134. This is a decrease for last week of 2,975.
Total registered beef births last week stood at 16,185, back from 17,760 on the same week last year. This is a decrease of 1,575.
Dairy births were also down last week compared to the same week in 2023.
There were 8,974 dairy calf births registered last week, compared to 10,374 is the same week of last year.
This is difference of 1,400 births.
The ICBF regularly updates the figures for calf registrations for both beef and dairy births.