Are star rams worth it

Eddies farm

Just wondering does star ratings make a difference and are there worth it over none star rams

Green farmer

If you have a breeder that's really putting effort into culling hard, constantly recording data, buying the best genes they can, and only selecting the top % of performing Rams , with a similiar outlook to a commercial farmer of supplying Rams that will perform, then I'd reward them and pay the extra for a high star rated ram. But trouble is the finding a lad like that.

Farmer_3650

I think it's worth having a 5 star Ram. But unless you are breeding lambs for both slaughtering and for replacements, no need to buy a Ram with 5 stars on both terminal and maternal. Only giving extra money for stars that are of no benefit to you.

orm0nd

Farmer_3650 wrote: »

I think it's worth having a 5 star Ram. But unless you are breeding lambs for both slaughtering and for replacements, no need to buy a Ram with 5 stars on both terminal and maternal. Only giving extra money for stars that are of no benefit to you.

if breeding replacements approx 50% are going to be male anyhow

nagshead

I know plenty of farmers have issues with the euro stars system ( including myself when a 5 star ram i bought changed to a 4 star a few months later) but in the long run if your planning to be profitable in sheep you need to be buying top star rated rams , with sheep and the numbers involved the data collects very quickly and that will weed out the dishonest ram breeder who who is only thinking short term , if you like the look of a ram and think he will suit your ewes and system buy as many stars as you can but pay attention to the accuracy of the traits. It has proven to be the way forward in cattle and horse breeding and will be the same with sheep in time.

rangler1

Sheep Ireland had a board at Brian Nicholson, They claimed the lambs were 1kg heavier at weaning in the 5star sheep than the 1 star and & 7% less losses at lambing. I'd imagine most good non recorded flocks in the country average 3 stars, so after all this work, what are you gaining....half a kilo extra at weaning and marginally less losses at lambing....it's not exactly utopia is it

Green farmer

rangler1 wrote: »

Sheep Ireland had a board at Brian Nicholson, They claimed the lambs were 1kg ....it's not exactly utopia is it

Hard to trust star ratings that are only 20-30 % accurate at best.

Sheep breeder

Green farmer wrote: »

Hard to trust star ratings that are only 20-30 % accurate at best.

Agree totally accuracy is totally out the window, cannot understand how two siblings can have different range of stars,

Lambman

I've 2 ram lambs outta same stock ram and there mothers were twin sisters and one is 5* the other is 4* and both have the extract same bloodlines

Cran

Yes there's definitely something in it, but it's a tool like physically checking Rams first. You need to like the ram first, accuracy needs to be over 35% really and I think breeder needs dqi over 60%

rangler1

Cran wrote: »

Yes there's definitely something in it, but it's a tool like physically checking Rams first. You need to like the ram first, accuracy needs to be over 35% really and I think breeder needs dqi over 60%

Accuracy needs to be way over 35% to be gambling your pedigree flock on, you might as well give your money to paddy power.
It's not the performance that's going to cost you, it's the way the star rating is going to depreciate your flock......probably won't be that much difference in performance,