Proposed new changes could be in the pipeline for the Economic Breeding Index (EBI) this year according to the genetics operations manager for the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF).

Margaret Kelleher told the Irish Grassland Association (IGA) dairy conference yesterday (Tuesday, January 14) that if these changes come into play they will not happen in the first half of 2025.

"There are some proposed updates to the EBI coming in the latter half of this year and we are looking at value changes in conjunction with Teagasc Moorepark,"Kelleher said.

She believes that these changes are needed in the breeding index model " just to reflect the cost of production and make it more in line with what it is today."

The proposals will likely to see change in the economic value, the base population, health and management and linear type evaluations.

According to Kelleher a base population change could be something that may be on the cards in 2025.

If it goes ahead Kelleher said "the base population will change".

"So at the moment when we have an EBI of zero, that's based on cows that were born in 2005 and milk recorded in 2007 - the base population change will be just bringing that forward to a more recent group of animals to perhaps make it look more reflective," she added.

Kelleher said currently all of this is at the proposal stage and is "just something that potentially might come in".

In relation to the linear type evaluations she also said that they are likely to see a model update also.

The genetics operations manager for ICBF also told the conference that in relation to the management and health sub-index that "the health and management traits that we have - we could see a model upgrade on that".

Kelleher also asked people in the audience to really focus on recording the management and health of their animals in order to get a more accurate portrayal of the animals.

However the proposed changes come at a time where the cost of production has changed drastically, the base milk price has also altered in recent years and there is a keen focus on efficiency and sustainability when it comes to breeding cows.

Kelleher has recommended that farmers should keep using the EBI to breed for their herd, to genotype their herd to boost breeding precision and to use sexed semen for your herd.

She also suggested that they should focus on the beef merit for dairy-beef bulls in order to produce higher commercial beef value (CBV) calves and to also use the Cow's Own Worth (C.O.W) index to cull underperforming cows in the herd and to retain the "better cows".