How important is the 5* ratings

Eggie99

Hi all,

Looking at buying a few young pedigree registered heifers for breedinga few replacements and sell off any Bulls. The owner told me that 2 of them are only 2**, one a 3*** and the 4th a 5****. Just how important are these figures, I'm happy to buy stock by how they look, more so than what a piece of paper says it should look, but are ppl going down the road of taking stars over what they can actually see in front of them, and if so would a bull out of a 2** animal be worth a lot less Evan if he was a good animal. Also if you had off spring off let's say the 2** heifer to a 5***** bull would it bring up the star rating by much. Don't know a hole lot about star ratings as you might have gathered, so thanks in advance for any input.

blue5000

What breed are they?

Eggie99

Hereford

blue5000

The market for herefords is mostly to dairy farmers, easy calving and a reasonable shape on the calf is all they want. The star ratings can go up or down depending on how bulls related to your cattle are doing. If you are happy with what you see, go for it if the price is right. Having said all that I'm a suckler farmer and I prefer a 5 star bull, I'm in the genomics scheme and I have to have 4 or 5 star cows to get paid.

sonnybill

Eggie99 wrote: »

Hereford

Use a combination of what you like visually and the stars( breeding values based on past performance of the animals parents ) but the higher stars the better!

cjmc11

Well I think they're really startin to make an impact since January, farmers in the bdgp have no choice but to buy or breed 4 or 5 star cattle in order to get paid on the scheme, and 2018 and 2020 wont be long coming around when they have targets to meet.
I was at 2 sales in the last week, 1 pedigree sale and one normal mart, and it was plain to be seen that the star ratings are having as much an impact on price as quality.
What people need to realize is that whether your cattle are top quality or not, the majority, and in a lot of cases all, of the profit coming from beef cattle is from schemes and subsidies and the majority of farmers in these schemes will be aiming to have 5 star cattle in paper rather than producing nice looking animals.
I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but its the reality.

Justjens

If you take the index price of both bull and heifer the offspring will be the average of the two, according to an article in the FJ.

ie. 3* HF with €70 index bred to a 5* Bull with €100 index will give offspring with €85 index and 4* (in theory!)

Disclaimer: I hold no responsibility if this is not the case;)

The goal is 50% of females over 16months in 2020 are either 4 or 5*, if they are all 4* you'll be grand.

Eggie99

I'm not in the BDGP, hence my lack of knowledge on the topic. Sure at that rate of going a 2** heifer would take 2 generations to breed a 4/5* animal, I'm I right in that???

patsy_mccabe

The other thing to remember is that as the years go on, it will be harder and harder to get the 4 and 5 stars. 5 stars mean in the top 20% of the breed. But we all can't have animals in the top 20%.:D
For every 5 Star animal, by definition there has to be a one star animal.

bogman_bass

Eggie99 wrote: »

I'm not in the BDGP, hence my lack of knowledge on the topic. Sure at that rate of going a 2** heifer would take 2 generations to breed a 4/5* animal, I'm I right in that???

If you are breeding hereford there is only one game in town and thats the Dairy market. Calving ease and gestation length are your two most important figures in that case

tanko

Eggie99 wrote: »

I'm not in the BDGP, hence my lack of knowledge on the topic. Sure at that rate of going a 2** heifer would take 2 generations to breed a 4/5* animal, I'm I right in that???

I'm not certain but I don't think you're right there, if you have a heifer at the higher end of the 2* band and put a 5* bull on her It should give you a 4* heifer.
The maternal eurostars reward easy calving bulls, it seems to me that HE Bulls are becoming harder calved (at least the ones in Ai seem to be).

sonnybill

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

The other thing to remember is that as the years go on, it will be harder and harder to get the 4 and 5 stars. 5 stars mean in the top 20% of the breed. But we all can't have animals in the top 20%.:D
For every 5 Star animal, by definition there has to be a one star animal.

Good point ... Competition will increase !

bogman_bass

tanko wrote: »

I'm not certain but I don't think you're right there, if you have a heifer at the higher end of the 2* band and put a 5* bull on her It should give you a 4* heifer.
The maternal eurostars reward easy calving bulls, it seems to me that HE Bulls are becoming harder calved (at least the ones in Ai seem to be).

They are. Hereford breeders seem to be chasing a suckler market that doesnt really exist for them

thegreatgonzo

tanko wrote: »

The maternal eurostars reward easy calving bulls, it seems to me that HE Bulls are becoming harder calved (at least the ones in Ai seem to be).

We gave SPL to one of our heifers, we had no problem

tanko

thegreatgonzo wrote: »

We gave SPL to one of our heifers, we had no problem

I suppose HE are like every other breed having Bulls of varying calving difficulty.
A while back i had a look through the HE Bulls in Ai and I was surprised at how high the calving difficulty figures of some of them were.

GiantPencil

tanko wrote: »

I suppose HE are like every other breed having Bulls of varying calving difficulty.
A while back i had a look through the HE Bulls in Ai and I was surprised at how high the calving difficulty figures of some of them were.

Best thing that breed ever did was have the premium factory price, if they didn't have that they'd be goosed!