The ICBF publishes the €uro-Star evaluations for beef cattle in Ireland. The €uro-Stars are the end result of a series of routine steps otherwise known as a “genetic evaluation run”.
A genetic evaluation run will identify all of the progeny and relatives of a bull and compare their performance records to those of their herd-mates. It then applies the economic values to this data, as some traits are more valuable than others, eg milk is a more valuable trait than tail length.
A breeding index groups these traits together, depending on their importance for achieving an overall goal. The goal of the Replacement Index is to identify a bull whose daughters will turn into excellent suckler cows with good milk, fertility, calving ability and moderate maintenance costs.
The index also includes beef traits such as carcase weight and feed intake, as it is of course also desired that a cow with a high Replacement Index also produces a good-quality calf.
The active beef bull List
The active beef bull list shows the 48 highest ranked beef AI sires on the Replacement Index that have semen widely available. The €uro-Star details of these bulls are based on the August 2015 genetic evaluations computed by ICBF.
Guide to reading the table
1) Bull details: rank, AI code, name, breed.
2) Replacement Index. This is the overall single-figure profit index that each bull has. A bull with a Replacement Index of €200 is expected to sire daughters that are €200 more profitable than the average Irish suckler cow. This €200 is made up of how their daughters perform themselves as suckler cows (milk and fertility) as well as how their daughters’ progeny perform in terms of growth and carcase traits.
Maternal cow traits: this shows how much of the bull’s Replacement Index is coming from the performance of his daughters in the suckler herd. This includes traits such as milk, calving interval, age of first calving, maternal calving, feed intake and cull cow weight.
Maternal progeny traits: this shows how much of the bull’s Replacement Index is coming from the beef performance of the progeny of his daughters in the suckler herd. This includes traits such as calving difficulty, gestation, feed intake, carcase weight and conformation.
As the Replacement Index is made up of a mix of maternal and terminal traits, it is very important that a bull’s index is looked at more closely to see whether he is getting his high index due to his daughters having milk and fertility, his daughters’ offspring having good beefing ability or a combination of both.
3) Daughter milk. Daughter milk is expressed in kilogrammes of liveweight. This is because the milking ability of a bull’s suckler daughters is assessed through the weights and growth rates of their calves while they are still suckling. The higher the kilogrammes, the milkier that the bulls daughters are expected to be.
4) Daughter calving interval. Daughter calving interval is measured in days and is a reflection of the fertility of a bull’s daughters. The more negative a bull’s figures are for this trait the better, as it is an indication that his daughters will have shorter calving intervals, indicating excellent fertility.
5) Calving difficulty. Calving difficulty % is the expected percentage of difficult calvings that a bull will bring.
Breed average: The breed average figure for this trait should always be referred to when this figure is being looked at. For example, % Calv Diff of 5% means that 5% of a bull’s calves will result in difficult calvings. However, if the average for the breed is 7.6%, then this bull is still easier than other bulls of the same breed.
6) Semen details: Price, availability and supplier details of each bull are also included. Semen availability L = low, M = medium, H = high.
€uro-Stars
The actual €uro-Stars make the values easy to understand. A bull can then be compared against another bull of the same breed with the “within breed” stars and he can be compared against a bull from a different breed with the “across breed” stars.
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