Beef HealthCheck Q1 Update 2026

Over the last ten years, liver fluke has shown the biggest shift of any condition tracked, with levels falling steadily until 2024, when they rose for the first time. This increase was linked to the wet conditions that year, which suit the snail that plays a key role in the liver fluke life cycle. Fortunately, levels have dropped back down in 2025 and even further at the start of 2026, suggesting that farmers responded with appropriate treatment and control measures.

For cattle that spent the winter housed, for any liver fluke infection that went untreated or if treatment was ineffective, animals could still have adult liver fluke at this point in the year. These can show up at slaughter and are flagged as ‘live fluke’ in reports. Fluke eggs may also turn up in dung samples from affected animals. If animals were treated with a flukicide at housing and live fluke are still being found, it’s worth reviewing whether the treatment worked as expected. The product used, the timing, or the dosage may need to be checked. Ensuring animals are clear of liver fluke before turnout reduces how much contamination ends up on the pasture, which helps protect animals from outbreaks in the autumn.

So far in 2026, the Beef HealthCheck programme has issued 24,090 reports covering 210,600 animals from 9,550 herds. Of those animals, 68% were beef breeds, made up of 39% steers, 33% heifers, 8% young bulls, with cows and bulls making up the remainder.

Active liver fluke was found in 1% of animals, while fluke-related liver damage was recorded in 5.1%. Both figures are down on the same 15-week period in 2025. Liver abscesses were seen in 3.9% of animals and pneumonia in 1.7%. There were 866 herds, roughly 9% of those in the programme, which had at least one animal with active live fluke detected at slaughter. The counties seeing the highest levels of active liver fluke infections are Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, and Sligo.