According to data from the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), over 1.3 million calves have been registered to dairy dams over the 12 weeks since February 1.

The breeding season will be kicking off for many farms across the country this week, and lasting for 12 weeks on a lot of them.

While at the same time, the final few cows from last year's 12-week breeding season will have finished calving this week, albeit there may still be a few stragglers.

And as that calving season come to a close, ICBF have confirmed that a total of 1,325,674 dairy calves have been registered in the year to date, as of Friday, May 1.

That is 11,814 more than the amount that was registered by this time last year.

During the week, there was 36,044 dairy calves registered, which is 4,221 less than the same week last year.

That means the figure may balance out yet, but the improvements in breeding and submission rates is evident.

Calf registrations

In total, 1,662,496 calves have been registered this year, meaning just under 80% of all calves born this year have been registered to dairy dams.

There was a total of 67,124 calves registered in the last week alone, according to ICBF, which is 11,114 less than last week, and 4,735 less than what was registered in the same week last year.

With both beef and dairy registrations back on last year's figures for the week, total registrations are now running 24,469 head above last year's figures.

Beef calves are holding steady this year, with one in five calf births in 2026 being registered to beef dams.

The total number of calves registered to beef dams has reached 336,822 for the year-to-date, which is 12,655 more calves than the same time last year.

There was 31,080 sucklers registered in the last week alone, which is actually down slightly from 31,594 during the same week in 2025.

However, there was a difference of 4,755 in last week's registrations when compared to the same week the year before.

April was a strong month for suckler registrations in general, with the week ending April 17 seeing a peak of 33,184 calves registered to beef dams in that week alone.