buying 5 star heifers for breeding

westlander

Hello all,
what do people use as the best method of buying 5 star heifers for breeding?

I know the mart is an obvious choice but does anyone ever buy off dondeal or does the mart ever put on a specific sale for selling heifers for breeding?

I do sell at the mart occasionally but never purchased so I would be new to that side of things

I suppose practice makes perfect!

Any info appreciated..

Who2

Ballybay mart have one every year, but the heifers make silly money, 1200-1700 roughly for bulling heifers. Ballymote have a sim sale with all the stars too but it can be a bit hit or miss on the quality and prices to reflect.

Bellview

Are you in genomic scheme. If not, then there is no real benefit. Lot of folk here can give details of one stars that are better than 5 stars within their herds. The stars are still a lottery as a five star today mah be 3 stars in next update.

charolais0153

Bellview wrote: »

Are you in genomic scheme. If not, then there is no real benefit. Lot of folk here can give details of one stars that are better than 5 stars within their herds. The stars are still a lottery as a five star today mah be 3 stars in next update.

There's maybe one in twenty individual cows that you'd look at and say why is she a one star but for the majority it is correct IMO. Its just at the beginning of a proper star system we need to wait if we want to see any Big benefit

Bellview

charolais0153 wrote:

There's maybe one in twenty individual cows that you'd look at and say why is she a one star but for the majority it is correct IMO. Its just at the beginning of a proper star system we need to wait if we want to see any Big benefit

Agree to disagree on above. The scheme and star rating is bias against stock bulls. I will speak from angus side where he bulls in ai are overall poor so options limited. If I take what I have at home about 4 out of 20 are correct.

Farrell

westlander wrote: »

Hello all,
what do people use as the best method of buying 5 star heifers for breeding?

I know the mart is an obvious choice but does anyone ever buy off dondeal or does the mart ever put on a specific sale for selling heifers for breeding?

I do sell at the mart occasionally but never purchased so I would be new to that side of things

I suppose practice makes perfect!

Any info appreciated..

Some marts have "4&5 star" or special breeding heifer sales, which can be advertised in advance on DD.
Also allot of marts have boards that will give the Star ratings of any stock being sold from Herdplus registered or BDGS farms.

Farrell

Bellview wrote: »

Agree to disagree on above. The scheme and star rating is bias against stock bulls. I will speak from angus side where he bulls in ai are overall poor so options limited. If I take what I have at home about 4 out of 20 are correct.

On the Terminal side, Bulls which deliver quality weanlings which are exported are rated well.
Also on recent excel docs, the weanling traits have been removed

Anyway .... back to topic

patsy_mccabe

I bought a few 5 star cows and heifers before Christmas. To be honest I had all picked out outside in the pens. The 5 stars was only a bonus. Don't buy 5 stars if you don't like the look of them. Remember a heifer with no milk can still be 5 stars. She could also be the stone mad and still be 5 star.

Farrell

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I bought a few 5 star cows and heifers before Christmas. To be honest I had all picked out outside in the pens. The 5 stars was only a bonus. Don't buy 5 stars if you don't like the look of them. Remember a heifer with no milk can still be 5 stars. She could also be the stone mad and still be 5 star.

She could be as quiet as a lamb & milk to feed twins but be a 1 star

Who2

Regardless of people's opinions I believe the star ratings are here to stay.the information needs to be correctly gathered and you'll usually find it's the ones who don't input it right are the ones that give out about it. The perimeters are set and it's now up to us to work within those.

charolais0153

Bellview wrote: »

Agree to disagree on above. The scheme and star rating is bias against stock bulls. I will speak from angus side where he bulls in ai are overall poor so options limited. If I take what I have at home about 4 out of 20 are correct.

Are those 4 related

Bellview

charolais0153 wrote:

Are those 4 related

2 yes. My point is more animals that I rate worst in herd and culling are rated 5 star..while others rated 1 star are doing he business. I have left the 5 star in to ensure I hit metrics but all her daughter have left the farm and none will ever stay. I'm upping numbers a bit at minute so I will play the metrics for the grant.
I sent one of my 2 stars that is a good breeder for genomic test..she came back as one star ..which asks the question how are the genetics actually measured and what is baseline

blue5000

OP try buy the ones with the small button tag, they will have been genomically tested and the reliability should be higher. I reckon buying privately would be better, you have a good chance of seeing what they're out of. What breed(s) are you after?

patsy_mccabe

blue5000 wrote: »

OP try buy the ones with the small button tag, they will have been genomically tested and the reliability should be higher...

Their parentage will be verified too, when they are genomically tested.

Wildsurfer

The star rating is based on the information in the database that farmers supply to it and in my opinion this is never going to be that accurate. How many of ye accurately record information on icbf? I know of one of the finest suckler herds in Ireland that has been given a 1 star rating. It has been bred with Terminal sires and deemed to be lacking milk but he argues his cows have more than enough and all the milk in the world wouldn't turn a bad animal into a good one. An ounce of breeding is worth a ton of feeding. So before ye rush out and start buying so called 5 star animals off us Dairy farmers who will gladly take yer money for Holstein cross cattle, have a look at yer own herds and think about the best future for them rather than being dictated to by some lads in an office who come up with schemes to keep them in a job in said same office!

patsy_mccabe

Have a look at these figures for Wildoge Vantastic. He's 5 Stars for replacement yet he's in the bottom 1% for both calving and milk. To me that just proves how crazy the whole thing is.
https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/516668339

charolais0153

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Have a look at these figures for Wildoge Vantastic. He's 5 Stars for replacement yet he's in the bottom 1% for both calving and milk. To me that just proves how crazy the whole thing is.
https://webapp.icbf.com/bull-search/view/516668339

Hes just about 5 star. He's almost a four. His maternal calving cancels out his own calving difficulty. He's going to have s musley cow that calces easily and the mother is going to be a big cow as the majority of his calvesae pure lim....97%of calves hes bulled have bee limo. If you've a plain milky cow he might do a job but he's a bull for the showring no doubt

Irish Beef

I'm similar situation to the OP, I'm not currently in the Genomics scheme but would like to join the next time it opens so therefore I think its a good idea to buy in 4 and 5 star cows and heifers when buying in. So the question I have is can I get my cows tested without being in the scheme so I'll know where I stand, also am I right in saying that its maternal and not terminal traits that count for the Genomics and is that for both the cow and bull you use.

tanko

Irish Beef wrote: »

I'm similar situation to the OP, I'm not currently in the Genomics scheme but would like to join the next time it opens so therefore I think its a good idea to buy in 4 and 5 star cows and heifers when buying in. So the question I have is can I get my cows tested without being in the scheme so I'll know where I stand, also am I right in saying that its maternal and not terminal traits that count for the Genomics and is that for both the cow and bull you use.

You don't need to get your cows tested to know where you stand, ICBF have all the info on your cows, you need to join Herdplus and pay €60 to see it at the moment but they did give farmers who weren't Herdplus members all the info on their cows and heifers for free before the Genomics scheme started so that they could decide whether they wanted to join or not.

Cows and heifers are judged on the maternal index only for the genomics scheme but a bull can qualify on either the maternal or terminal index.