The initial visits to the herds of beef pedigree breeders that have signed up to the Bull Breeder Program have begun. The purpose of these visits is to meet the Breeder, explain what is involved in the program and to go through the Breeder’s Herd Data Quality Index (HDQI). The HDQI is an indication as to the level of completeness and timeliness with which different types of data has been recorded by the Breeder on his pedigree animals e.g. insemination data & weight data etc.
One such breeder visited this week was the pedigree Blonde d’Aquitaine breeder Michael Healy, Clogherane East, Lauragh, Co. Kerry. The following picture shows Mike with one of his pedigree cows ‘Kingdom Niamh’
Born on the 16th May 1997. She has produced 14 calves (6 heifers & 8 Bulls), is a very milky & fertile cow with an average calving interval of 380 days. At her last calving she produced 2 heifers (photographed) sired by the French Blond d’Aquitaine bull ‘Ringot’.