The total number of Irish calves registered in 2026 is running more 36,000 head above last years figures as of Friday, March 27.

1,242,690 calves have been registered to date this year, versus the 1,206,397 which were registered in the same time period last year, according to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) database.

The trend has been seen across the board, with both dairy and beef registrations up on last years figures.

Calf registrations

In the last week alone, 94,118 calves were registered to dairy dams, bringing the total amount of dairy calves registered to 1,058,226.

Interestingly, dairy registrations have been behind 2025 figures for the entire month of March so far on a week to week basis, following a vigorous number of births in February.

In fact, with dairy registrations down 3,830 for this week, the total registrations for the week ending March 27 even slipped behind 2025's figures.

Meanwhile, calves registered to beef dams are above last years figures on a weekly basis, and therefore above on total registrations too.

There was 31,683 calves registered to dairy dams in the last week, which is 2,183 more than the same week in 2025.

The total figure for calves registered to beef dams has reached 184,464, which is 14,269 more than what was registered by the same time last year.

Despite only one in seven calves been registered to beef dams in total for 2026, as dairy births begin to wind down the figure has pushed to one in four for the week ending March 27.

NGP

Labs are still busy within the National Genotyping Programme (NGP), however things are beginning to slow down there too.

According to ICBF, 57,391 calf samples were received in the lab last week.

This figure is well off the peak, with the lab seeing two consecutive record breaking weeks back in mid February.

During these weeks, 118,000 samples were being received in the lab, with 116,000 samples processed being processed.

Last week, 38,499 calf samples were processed in the lab, spending an average of 3.7 days there.

The average turnaround time from birth to the passport being issued has stretched to 15.7 days, as samples are now taking 9.4 days to get to the lab after the calf is born.