Last week, we looked at how the autumn sales played out for each breed and how they changed year on year. This week, we look at the top-performing bulls at these sales. Which bulls produced the biggest number of offspring and which produced progeny to sell for the highest average?

This is vital information for a breeder who may be choosing his AI bull team for the coming year. While many will have already started insemination, others are only beginning to get going.

This, in many cases, will help reinforce confidence that the bull you are choosing for the coming year is capable of producing the goods.

In Table 1 (below), we see the list of all AI bulls that sired an animal at a society sale to the average price at that sale or above. This allows only the better bull and heifer prices by that sire to be included.

Breeders need to remember that the bull is only half the picture and that the cow makes up the other half. No matter how good the bull used is, it cannot make up for a very poor standard female.

The table also only displays bulls available in AI. This does not necessarily mean these are the top-performing bulls in each breed.

Many pedigree herds in Ireland use stock bulls with great success, which may in some cases outperform the best available in AI. Stock bull use is particularly more common in the traditional breeds, making it a bit harder to see which bulls are the stand-outs.

Top performers

In Table 2, we outline the 10 bulls which produced progeny to sell for the highest average. Only bulls which sired two or more animals are included.

This table is led by Simmental bull Kilbride Farm Dragoon (ZKF). This bull sired four progeny to average €9,175. This was led by his daughter, Clonagh Jubilant Fabulous, which sold for a society sale female record of €18,000. She also stood as overall national Simmental champion for 2019.

Only one other Simmental featured and that was the old favourite Hillcrest Champion, which placed third on the list, selling three progeny for just shy of €6,900.

The Charolais breed dominated this list, with four of the 10 bulls coming from the breed. This was helped by the society’s Christmas Cracker bull sale being one of the best of the autumn. Top of the breed and second overall highest averaging sire was Goldstar Hugo 2, which sired two progeny to average €8,250.

Third on the list was Charolais bull Doonally New (CF52). He sired six to average €7,567.

Looking at Table 3, CF52 tops this for having sired the most progeny to sell for the average price or more. This is the second year in a row that CF52 has topped this list, with last year’s average settling at €5,333.

The old French bull continues to be in demand from commercial buyers, with pedigree breeders willing to pay handsomely for any remaining straws.

A total of eight bulls from four breeds make up the list, having sired at least three progeny to sell at auction during autumn 2019. This shows that, with the odd exception, there’s very few stand-out bulls. When there’s a high number of AI bulls only siring one animal, it shows a lack of a dominant, consistent bull.

For example, in the Charolais breed, only two of the 17 bulls listed sired more than two calves. One of which is Doonally New, a bull that has been around for nearly 20 years.

Where only one bull stands out for a number of years, a breed runs the risk of tightening the gene pool. In the Limousin breed, we see a number of stand-out bulls over the past number of years, but many go back in some way to Wilodge Tonka.

This is again something breeders need to be wary of when selecting bulls for the coming season.