Data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) shows that up until December 27, 2024, there were 56,622 less calf registrations on Irish farms in comparison to 2023.
Based on the data, 2,365,483 calves were registered on Irish farms in 2023 and this dropped to 2,308,861 in 2024.
In 2022, the number of calves registered in the country stood at 2,408,583 for the year, which shows that there has been nearly 100,000 less calves registered in 2024 in comparison to 2022.
Beef
The drop in calf registrations can be attributed to a considerable deduction in beef births, with 45,879 fever births compared to the same period in 2023.
Based on the ICBF data, a total of 708,227 calves were registered, or born to beef dams in 2024.
For the same period in 2023, it stood at 754,106, while at the end of 2022, there had been 814,942 calves registered to beef dams.
Based on figures for 2022, the total number of calves registered to beef dams has fallen by 106,715 head in two years.
This represents a 13.09% reduction in births to beef dams between 2022 and 2024.
Dairy calf registrations
Over to the dairy birth registrations, a total of 1,600,634 calves were registered in 2024.
This is a slight decrease of 10,743 calves on the same period in 2023 when 1,611,377 calves had been registered on Irish dairy farms.
When compared to the same period in 2022, some 1,593,641 calves had been registered to dairy dams.
There was a drastic increase in dairy birth registrations in 2023, and 2024 has somewhat returned to the same level of registrations in 2022.
The trend in beef calf registrations is not new, with births from beef dams declining since before the removal of milk quotas in 2015.
Dairy births had seen an increase in 2023 which can be put down to the good milk price in 2022, but due to a number of challenges facing the sector and a natural levelling-off, the number of calf registrations appears to be somewhat stabilising.
We are now seeing a decline in overall registered births, as the beef decline continues and the dairy sees a slight decrease from 2023.
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