Brian Reidy: What does the future hold for Irish livestock producers?

Producers need to know before breeding which heifers are eligible for the suckler scheme and which bulls to use on them.

I have had a lot of discussions with farmers lately about Suckler Stars and EBI. At this point, it seems that a lot of dairy and suckler producers are extremely disillusioned with the indices being used and the type of animal they feel is being pushed upon them.

In dairy herds there are a lot of farmers very unhappy with the high EBI heifers as they enter the herd, they comment that they are too small, can’t eat enough and have far too little milk for their system. Many farmers are offloading these heifers in their first lactation and more are selling them before they have a calf or even go in calf as they can see that they will not be able to do the job on their farm.