12 March 2025
Calving difficulty scores – do they deliver?
Suckler farmers, stemming from the necessity of producing a live calf annually with minimal intervention, have become more attuned to the calving difficulty scores of the sires used on their farms.
But how representative are the figures that appear in AI catalogues or the ICBF’s Animal Search facility to what actually happens on the ground in terms of calving difficulty?
To provide clarity on this, the ICBF has recently conducted an analysis of over 400,000 cow calving difficulty scores submitted by suckler farmers in 2024, and compared them to the calving difficulty scores on the basis of ‘Beef Cow Calving Difficulty Percentage’ of the progeny’s sires.
Ranking the calving difficulty scores from 1% to 13%, as expanded upon in table 1 below, the ICBF analysis shows that the calving difficulty trait is a good predictor of actual calving difficulty on the ground, something important to note as difficult calvings result in extra labour and costs for suckler farmers.
Table 1. Analysis of 2024 farmer recorded calving difficulty scores by sire ‘Beef Cow Calving Difficulty Percentage’
| Calving difficulty % | Number of sires | Number of calves | Calving difficulty scores | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 (No assistance) |
2 (Some assistance) |
3 (Serious difficulty |
4 (Vet assistance) |
Total 3 & 4 | |||
| 1% | 1,475 | 14,825 | 97.0% | 2.5% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.5% |
| 2% | 4,416 | 49,892 | 96.0% | 3.5% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.5% |
| 3% | 6,850 | 89,236 | 94.5% | 4.7% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.8% |
| 4% | 6,123 | 87,434 | 92.9% | 6.0% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 1.1% |
| 5% | 4,149 | 67,899 | 89.9% | 8.5% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 1.6% |
| 6% | 2,559 | 33,649 | 87.7% | 10.1% | 1.2% | 1.0% | 2.2% |
| 7% | 1,414 | 27,390 | 84.3% | 13.3% | 1.3% | 1.1% | 2.4% |
| 8% | 784 | 12,176 | 82.4% | 14.5% | 1.8% | 1.4% | 3.2% |
| 9% | 483 | 10,726 | 78.1% | 16.7% | 2.8% | 2.4% | 5.2% |
| 10% | 266 | 7,319 | 73.2% | 21.2% | 3.0% | 2.7% | 5.7% |
| 11% | 160 | 4,067 | 68.7% | 24.5% | 4.5% | 2.4% | 6.9% |
| 12% | 122 | 2,161 | 67.0% | 26.1% | 3.6% | 3.2% | 6.9% |
| 13% | 263 | 5,447 | 56.8% | 30.4% | 8.5% | 4.4% | 12.8% |
As evident in table 1 above – which ranks sires based on their ‘Beef Cow Calving Difficulty Percentage’ and looks at the prevalence of each of the four calving difficulty scores recorded – as the sires’ Beef Cow Calving Difficulty Percentage increases, so too does the prevalence of recorded difficulty across the scores (2-4). This trend is particularly important to note as a sire’s ‘Beef Cow Calving Difficulty Percentage’ increases, so too does the level of assistance required.
However, there are a couple of caveats to note. The data submitted by farmers through the calving survey does not take into account cases of calf malpresentations, which may be causing a discrepancy between the sire’s figure and the level of assistance required at farm level. The ICBF also notes that the recording of accurate date is important in order to ensure the accuracy of the ICBF calving evaluations, through which cases of malpresentations, birth weights, calf size and vigour can also be recorded through its ‘Birth Events’ recording page.
For further details on this analysis, please visit the ICBF’s website here.