Eurostar

Miname

I spent a couple of hours going through heifers on Sunday with the idea of picking my own replacemments out, (last couple of years ive been buying most of my replacements), anyways for curiosity sake i decided to check out their indexes. to my surprise i have to say they were all my top heifers, ranging from 168-200 on the maternal indexes, one major surprise was a little scut of an aa heifer i bought for very small money that came back at e200 maternal. i was going to hang her up next spring but im tempted to keep her now, im really just stating that with all the criticism of the eurostar figures im starting to think they have came on well. The calves all seem to be hitting the stars as id rate them myself.

Farrell

Miname wrote: »

I spent a couple of hours going through heifers on Sunday with the idea of picking my own replacemments out, (last couple of years ive been buying most of my replacements), anyways for curiosity sake i decided to check out their indexes. to my surprise i have to say they were all my top heifers, ranging from 168-200 on the maternal indexes, one major surprise was a little scut of an aa heifer i bought for very small money that came back at e200 maternal. i was going to hang her up next spring but im tempted to keep her now, im really just stating that with all the criticism of the eurostar figures im starting to think they have came on well. The calves all seem to be hitting the stars as id rate them myself.

Noticed a bit myself, saw cows which had little rating a while ago that had/have very good calves, shoot up in index.
Maybe there's more effort being put to the suckling side.
We're waiting on scanning, have a 2.5 star LM off a BBX hopefully due in December, & a 4.5 Star BB off a SIX hopefully due in April, both calving at 2yo to AI LM eager to see how they compare

Miname

its good to see it. for curiousity sake im going to breed all 4 and 5* heifers this year and i'll hopefully be able to stick up the results in a few years. hopefully it can be referenced as accurately as the info the dairy lads get from their recordings and such, the same info wont be available but at least it may be able to give a realistic guide to production.

LivInt20

I see the top €urostar ratings relate very close to my top cows.

A sub index to look at is the Daughter Milk.

This is matching very well with what I consider my top cows in terms of calf performance.

This is applying across all breeds and not one breed in particular.

onyerbikepat

I can't look at mine 'cause I'm not in HerdPlus!
Looking at the calving date for individual cows over say the last 8 years is a real eye opener. Great to see cows calving at an earlier date this year than they did 8 years ago. Funny thing all these seem to have bulls.

tanko

I find it useful but at the same time it just confirms what I already know as regards the best/worst cows/calves in the herd.

blue5000

Started to use it last year, putting cows below 150 for maternal to a terminal bull and cows over that to a bull with good maternal figures. It's early days yet.

Another thing I've noticed is a stock bull's figures are badly affected by BVD in the herd. In my case a lot of his daughters didn't go in calf or calving dates slipped and the bull's figures nose dived.

mikeoh

How do they come up with the figures did someone come out and examine yer stock .....or is it a computer in Dublin crunching numbers and stats

Zr105

Miname wrote: »

I spent a couple of hours going through heifers on Sunday with the idea of picking my own replacemments out, (last couple of years ive been buying most of my replacements), anyways for curiosity sake i decided to check out their indexes. to my surprise i have to say they were all my top heifers, ranging from 168-200 on the maternal indexes, one major surprise was a little scut of an aa heifer i bought for very small money that came back at e200 maternal. i was going to hang her up next spring but im tempted to keep her now, im really just stating that with all the criticism of the eurostar figures im starting to think they have came on well. The calves all seem to be hitting the stars as id rate them myself.

Not to put a dampner on the angus but be careful there, if it's an angus from a dairy cow this may mean she has massively high maternal indexes but may be useless as a cow herself depending upon the bull used, now it may be that she would be a great cow but I'd be a bit wary of it, and the reason I say this is from flicking down through the figures here and suddenly seeing these massive high maternal ratings, scroll across and it turns out to be a Friesian bullock

Miname

Theres a lot of ways the figuress are calculated, be that from data collected on ai bulls and then their progeny and the results gathered over a few years. my best cow that consistently produces is so with the starr system aswell yet there seems to be very little ai influence in the background so im just guessing they have a fair bit of data gathered off animals killed and graded as well. there was tissue samples sent off on some of the cows this year too so they would have got a bit of feed back on that too. The more lads that give feedback the further we'll all get with this.

LivInt20

mikeoh wrote: »

How do they come up with the figures did someone come out and examine yer stock .....or is it a computer in Dublin crunching numbers and stats

Lots of data being recorded by farmers, marts, factories, ICBF, Beef Data Programme, weights, calving interval, etc...

All this data inputted to database, along with sire and dam details, gives €urostar figures.

onyerbikepat

Data seems to come from everywhere,

• Farmer data inputted on-line.
• Ai technicians - recording AI dates
• Mart weights, prices
• Factory weights, fat scores, grades, age at slaughter
• All relatives of animals influence each other values, a good bull for example would lift the scores of it's parents etc

It's a good system for what it is, but it does have it's limitations. Reliabilities of figures can be very low, and ICBF are always pointing this out.
To be honest, if I had a very good cow in the herd, but her figures were bad, with low reliabilities, I'll still breed from her. Nobody knows your cows like you do.

Mad4simmental

If I signen up to this can I put all my heifers and cows onto it and see what their €star is or will that become available over many years of breeding and inputting data?

bogman_bass

Yes - providing you have sires recorded

tanko

There was a speaker from ICBF at the heifer sale in Carrigallen tonight. He gave a very good talk about how to make best use of Eurostar figures. He said that the figures for an animal as well as the physical appearance of the animal should be used when deciding which animals to breed off.

He said that a farmer wouldn't decide which woman to marry based on her physical appearance alone, but would get to know her to find out about her "figures" first before making a decision.

Genghis Cant

tanko wrote: »

There was a speaker from ICBF at the heifer sale in Carrigallen tonight. He gave a very good talk about how to make best use of Eurostar figures. He said that the figures for an animal as well as the physical appearance of the animal should be used when deciding which animals to breed off.

He said that a farmer wouldn't decide which woman to marry based on her physical appearance alone, but would get to know her to find out about her "figures" first before making a decision.

If it's advice on women you're after its not ICBF you need to be listening to. You need to go straight to the top man. The love machine that is ...... Charliebull. A man like Charlie forgot more that a lot of Ye whippersnappers ever knew :-)

onyerbikepat

If women did have a tag, you could input it on ICBF or whatever and find out what they are like.
Have you seen the linear scoring bit - thigh width, width of hips, depth of hips, length of back, locomotion...:D

Mad4simmental

onyerbikepat wrote: »

If women did have a tag, you could input it on ICBF or whatever and find out what they are like.
Have you seen the linear scoring bit - thigh width, width of hips, depth of hips, length of back, locomotion...:D

What she like for milk?

tanko

Two figures that stood out for the whole country were the average calving interval of 412 days (partly due to the fodder crisis) and the figure of 0.79 calves per cow per year. This means that 21% of cows aren't having a calf in any twelve month period.
Keeping cows with poor fertility that don't have a calf every year is costing farmers more money than they think.

LivInt20

Mad4simmental wrote: »

If I signen up to this can I put all my heifers and cows onto it and see what their €star is or will that become available over many years of breeding and inputting data?

Yes €urostar figures will be there for all cattle in the herd, as well as various reports about the performance of the herd.

Farrell

LivInt20 wrote: »

Yes €urostar figures will be there for all cattle in the herd, as well as various reports about the performance of the herd.

I find the suckler report to be beneficial as it lets you know how the calves off that cow preformed especially to weanling producers like us.
The issues I would have, is when that cow leaves the herd that info is no longer available (except through old reports), also if I buy a bull off you I can look up Taurus & see his rating (even if you're not on ICBF), but there is no facility for heifer.

Nettleman

ICBF is latest parasitic quango to suck blood for its survival out of the farmer. we pay levy to them on ear tags, and they in turn charge 60 euros a year to farmer to access the system, but the system itself is only as good as the information that farmer puts into it...They also have put all their efforts into dairy breeding, and loads of functionality for beef is not yet available...Also, re the Gneomics scheme, they take the Gneomic DNA which is farmer provides to them, and if farmer wants to know the DNA profile of his cows, he has to request it, but they wont give it to you in English. in otherwards, they make you provide the sample, which they admit is still your property as you own the cow, but wont give you the plain English on the results. Gee, thanks there lads...Look at their presentation at last Beef Roundtable, major disappointment, particularly starting off my saying they are great on dairy side, and no silver bullet for beef farmers. Gee, thanks there lads again.

mikeoh

Uk breedplan seems to tell the farmer a lot more when picking an AI bull......whether it can be believed is an other thing..,...............will the Eurostar rating reflect if a "good" beef bull that has been used on bad cows (eg. Dairy herd).....how will he compare to a lesser bull of same breed used on sucklers

Future Farmer

I agree with you lads, but was at an ICBF event recently in Tully.

The ICBF said 40% of suckler cows are registered with no sire, this must mean circa 10%+ are registered wrong.

This is a massive problem...

LivInt20

Future Farmer wrote: »

I agree with you lads, but was at an ICBF event recently in Tully.

The ICBF said 40% of suckler cows are registered with no sire, this must mean circa 10%+ are registered wrong.

This is a massive problem...

Yes but the Suckler Cow Scheme and Beef Data Programme will improve that stat as older cows die out of herds.

Beef Genomics Scheme will identify cows that are registered with the wrong Sire, if the DNA of the sire is known.

Nettleman

LivInt20 wrote: »

Yes but the Suckler Cow Scheme and Beef Data Programme will improve that stat as older cows die out of herds.

Beef Genomics Scheme will identify cows that are registered with the wrong Sire, if the DNA of the sire is known.

Apart from making some office based suit happy in his nappy, how exactly does wrong sire identification benefit a beef farmer, who afterall, is being charged for this "service"? The cow isn't going to produce more milk, or better calf because some suit has discovered her daddy fecked off and abandoned her before birth for another more rounded cow, better colour and nicer eyes:D:D:D:D

LivInt20

Nettleman wrote: »

Apart from making some office based suit happy in his nappy, how exactly does wrong sire identification benefit a beef farmer, who afterall, is being charged for this "service"? The cow isn't going to produce more milk, or better calf because some suit has discovered her daddy fecked off and abandoned her before birth for another more rounded cow, better colour and nicer eyes:D:D:D:D

The idea is that the €urostar proofs and reliability will improve if correct sire identified.

It should help pick better heifers to breed as cows in the future.

blue5000

Future Farmer wrote: »

I agree with you lads, but was at an ICBF event recently in Tully.

The ICBF said 40% of suckler cows are registered with no sire, this must mean circa 10%+ are registered wrong.

This is a massive problem...

How did you work this out?

Bellview

blue5000 wrote: »

How did you work this out?

I didn't attend the event or know the numbers above but one issue that I'm aware of is that a large portion of farmers register their calves as ie aax or hex and don't add tag of bull - here we have seen wher folks have registered a jex as an aax. This may one reason that a number of females without a daddy. This impacts icbf accuracy and until icbf make it compulsory for all to name the bull this problem will continue.

onyerbikepat

Bellview wrote: »

I didn't attend the event or know the numbers above but one issue that I'm aware of is that a large portion of farmers register their calves as ie aax or hex and don't add tag of bull - here we have seen wher folks have registered a jex as an aax. This may one reason that a number of females without a daddy. This impacts icbf accuracy and until icbf make it compulsory for all to name the bull this problem will continue.

What if farmers genuienly don't know the bull. A lot of farmers run more than one bull. The neighbouring bulls bull a lot of cows and you don't want to put down their tag numbers. No data is a lot better than BAD data.

Bellview

onyerbikepat wrote: »

What if farmers genuienly don't know the bull. A lot of farmers run more than one bull. The neighbouring bulls bull a lot of cows and you don't want to put down their tag numbers. No data is a lot better than BAD data.

fair point but still does not excuse a lad that is too lazy to fill in any data.. that is my point, there are too many that couldn't be bothered - especially if a beef calf turn up on a dairy farm. I can nearly bet that if this were a dairy farmer he would have his herd 95%+ accurate on the female calves for the dairy side of the herd but if he had a beef calf an X is added... as there is no benefit to him/her completing the detail.

until this is fixed the eurostar numbers are ok as a reference when and should only make up 10% of your decision unless you know the bloodlines where you can then completely ignore eurostar

just do it

There's a handy tool for milkers to help you select a good AI match for your cow. I presume it gives the potential ratings of the calf. Now that would be handy

Farrell

just do it wrote: »

There's a handy tool for milkers to help you select a good AI match for your cow. I presume it gives the potential ratings of the calf. Now that would be handy

Sadly a similar system is not in place for Beef.
Went to use it & it was recommending HO bulls (Not ideal for Suckling)

Nettleman

Farrell wrote: »

Sadly a similar system is not in place for Beef.
Went to use it & it was recommending HO bulls (Not ideal for Suckling)

Crisis in beef not a priority in ICBF as taking credit for the recent good fortunes of dairy-Beef = 2nd class citizens. Think they charge same for beef and dairy access, but more tools for dairy..:mad:

Bellview

Nettleman wrote: »

Crisis in beef not a priority in ICBF as taking credit for the recent good fortunes of dairy-Beef = 2nd class citizens. Think they charge same for beef and dairy access, but more tools for dairy..:mad:

ICBF are taking a lot of credit for dairy success and you would question how much of this success they actually drove/are responsible for. Dairy co-ops were milk recording prior ICBF, Dairy farmers were working on improving their genetics prior ICBF..ICBF consolidated the data into one database and printed the results. If ICBF were not in place a lot of this improvement would have been achieved anyway through the investments that were being made by farmers. The ICBF are basically a civil service activity that we all pay for.

the beef maternal program data that I have seen for the Angus breed is a joke and is driving the breed down a few UK bloodlines that are actually poor. The bulls that are selected each year for the program as purchased from the same small group of farmers, as previous year due to way the figures total up. The down side for Angus will be poor cattle in future if too many farmers follow ICBF like sheep, I would be interested in the other societies views of where the maternal program will carry them.

Nettleman

Bellview wrote: »

ICBF are taking a lot of credit for dairy success and you would question how much of this success they actually drove/are responsible for. Dairy co-ops were milk recording prior ICBF, Dairy farmers were working on improving their genetics prior ICBF..ICBF consolidated the data into one database and printed the results. If ICBF were not in place a lot of this improvement would have been achieved anyway through the investments that were being made by farmers. The ICBF are basically a civil service activity that we all pay for.

the beef maternal program data that I have seen for the Angus breed is a joke and is driving the breed down a few UK bloodlines that are actually poor. The bulls that are selected each year for the program as purchased from the same small group of farmers, as previous year due to way the figures total up. The down side for Angus will be poor cattle in future if too many farmers follow ICBF like sheep, I would be interested in the other societies views of where the maternal program will carry them.

Couldn't agree more, and if funds from tags etc was diverted away from ICBF towards funding a beef regulator, to safeguard the reputation of the irish farmer which was damaged by horsegate, I would probably agree to that.

Sheep breeder

a lot fellas change the breed of calf at birth to make the animal look better on the board in the mart when there selling them on. seen a lot of black and white bbx calves and a lot of aax becoming limx

LivInt20

Two proofs that €urostars work.

http://issuu.com/herdplus/docs/euro-stars_in_action_-_finishers

http://www.icbf.com/?p=2597

onyerbikepat

I have found that anyone that knocks ICBF, either doesn't understand what they are doing or has a vested interest in doing so.

Andy Gray

onyerbikepat wrote: »

I have found that anyone that knocks ICBF, either doesn't understand what they are doing or has a vested interest in doing so.

Couldn't agree with you more. Like the kid who was **** at soccer in school and walked off the pitch exclaiming "ah this is a stupid game anyway"!!!

Future Farmer

Andy Gray wrote: »

Couldn't agree with you more. Like the kid who was **** at soccer in school and walked off the pitch exclaiming "ah this is a stupid game anyway"!!!

Read this:

http://www.agriland.ie/news/drystock-farmers-focus-can-control/

Bellview

Future Farmer wrote: »

Read this:

http://www.agriland.ie/news/drystock-farmers-focus-can-control/

interesting article as proves point there are a lot of simple things that are wrong and these need to get fixed... unfortunately beef farmers are a long way behind the dairy folks who have led the way themselves through their investment. until the basics are fixed the stars will not solve the basics that exist.

until ICBF make all completion of sires compulsory, ICBF is a selective data source and when i see comments no data is better than bad data... by forcing the lazy boys to complete the sire details the data will be better than no data.

Miname

Bellview wrote: »

interesting article as proves point there are a lot of simple things that are wrong and these need to get fixed... unfortunately beef farmers are a long way behind the dairy folks who have led the way themselves through their investment. until the basics are fixed the stars will not solve the basics that exist.

until ICBF make all completion of sires compulsory, ICBF is a selective data source and when i see comments no data is better than bad data... by forcing the lazy boys to complete the sire details the data will be better than no data.

And where did the dairy boys start? It's coming on leaps and bounds and in fairness to them if have to say the majority of the data on my herd seems to be fairly accurate.

Bellview

Miname wrote: »

And where did the dairy boys start? It's coming on leaps and bounds and in fairness to them if have to say the majority of the data on my herd seems to be fairly accurate.

The dairy boys started milk recording prior ICBF through the co-ops, again the dairy boys were driving solid content in milk especially protein. This was happening prior 98 when ICBF was established. The co-ops & AI's were also importing semen & investing in young bull programs... again all prior 98. The benefit that ICBF did bring is one national database and for dairy folks milk is a great common denominator - there is limited room to trick the system as its measured & reliability is high for milk... fertility is now an interesting challenge now for the dairy folks

On the Beef side, generally if you use AI you have more consistent calves, but there are too many bulls that have ie 15% reliabilty and where I know some blood lines that are deemed maternal they are tougher on calving and harder to finish (mostly UK bulls)...yet the eurostar rates them as the best of breed. My concern is raised why are UK bulls deemed superior to Irish while the UK bulls have had limited exposure to here and have not been compared on a lik for like basis . Is there a vested interest in these bulls to be viewed superior for other commercial reasons?

Another reason I question the accuracy of the data is last spring I was at a pedigree sale where there were 3 full brothers from the same breeder - all Embroy's and they had different calving difficulty and replacement index's etc. why did the computer so this. I can send the proofs from the ICBF page but I will not post the link them here. would be interesting if there are other examples out there

on balance I always support data as it is the only way to make a solid decisions.. every day we make decisions based on facts that we know but I'm not happy to claim that decisions made on low reliability index's on metrics that are often personal opinions are 100% accurate ie if I have a stock bull I can claim short gestation periods, easy calving etc where reality may be very different.. at least in dairy milk is a great leveller.

Until there is more compliance on completion of sires across all herds then the data from ICBF will always be of limited value and I never hear ICBF looking at ways to encourage more compliance which is dissapointing

Nettleman

onyerbikepat wrote: »

I have found that anyone that knocks ICBF, either doesn't understand what they are doing or has a vested interest in doing so.

Not true, that's not why I am "knock" them, I have already said why I have issues with them, including their poor quality presentation at last roundtable, and their civil service like mentality, and just like bord bia, have their survival guaranteed by "government introduced statutory levy" funding paid for by ALL farmers who buy an ear tag.
They should be forced to make themselves more relevant to their customers /farmers for own survival secure and thus justifying (and earning) their own funding income. More levys to prop up organisations (IFA being another) that will fall flat on their arses if their funding was optional. Its "communism" for state quangos.

Future Farmer

blue5000 wrote: »

How did you work this out?

I didn't but surely if 40% have no sire - there must be X% with the wrong sire.

There must be more registered wrong than right!

onyerbikepat

Bellview wrote: »

....
Another reason I question the accuracy of the data is last spring I was at a pedigree sale where there were 3 full brothers from the same breeder - all Embroy's and they had different calving difficulty and replacement index's etc. why did the computer so this. ...

I was wondering the same myself. I have a pedigree limousin and another animal I was looking at on ICBF, exact same breding, both by ET, but generation before, has slightly different values on ICBF ratings.
I think it comes down to genetics. Full brothers ans sisters don't have the same genes.

Nettleman

onyerbikepat wrote: »

I was wondering the same myself. I have a pedigree limousin and another animal I was looking at on ICBF, exact same breding, both by ET, but generation before, has slightly different values on ICBF ratings.
I think it comes down to genetics. Full brothers ans sisters don't have the same genes.

Higher Reliability % on older generation may lead to better/worse score as more data to go on.

Bellview

onyerbikepat wrote: »

I was wondering the same myself. I have a pedigree limousin and another animal I was looking at on ICBF, exact same breding, both by ET, but generation before, has slightly different values on ICBF ratings.
I think it comes down to genetics. Full brothers ans sisters don't have the same genes.

I agree on this but the bulls I mention were all born within days of each other and were from the same flush - so i would expect same data results. I'm just confused why the numbers are different and this is reason why I question why we should take the stats as bible.

Agree on different genes within full brothers/sisters, as I've had some in AA and some have been chalk and cheese ... but the ICBF database would be unable to know this based on stats, except where a generation later they may have some additional data that might impact the stats

Miname

The thing about is that it isn't bible but a good guide. I can guarantee there are cows out there with serious ebi's that don't come close to it in reality

onyerbikepat

Bellview wrote: »

I agree on this but the bulls I mention were all born within days of each other and were from the same flush - so i would expect same data results. I'm just confused why the numbers are different and this is reason why I question why we should take the stats as bible.

Agree on different genes within full brothers/sisters, as I've had some in AA and some have been chalk and cheese ... but the ICBF database would be unable to know this based on stats, except where a generation later they may have some additional data that might impact the stats

There may be data inputted to the system for the animals themselves, such as linear scoring, weight for age, docility etc.