Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 13 December 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Recent Reclassification of Beef Indexes: Discussion
Mr. Sean Coughlan:
I will hand over to Dr. Crosson in a moment. However, one of the issues I highlighted in my opening statement was that there are many different traits as regards the replacement index and carcass weight makes up a portion on the cow side, but it is not a significant portion. I was in Carrick-on-Shannon the week before last, so I will look at the calves per cow per year in County Leitrim. We are at 0.82 calves per cow per year from the suckler herd in Leitrim. That is an extremely challenging position if we are trying to carry an extra cow in every five cows. We are only getting productivity effectively from four out of every five cows. The national figure is similar. It is approximately 0.85 or 0.86. Chasing carcass weight on its own on the cow side-----