Last week the ICBF launched an online tool called the Stockbull Finder.
It aims to make it easier to search for suitable bulls of high genetic merit in your locality.
Only bulls which have passed ICBF inspections will be in the list and bulls can be searched on criteria such as breed, terminal index and replacement index.
What is it?
So, what is the Stockbull Finder? It is the new bull sales section on the ICBF website.
Only bulls from WHPR herds that have been weighed and scored will be included.
So, for a beef pedigree breeder, your young bulls will be advertised for sale while they are in your herd.
How does it work?
After a participating herd gets its whole herd visit completed with the ICBF scorer, all pedigree bulls present at the visit (10 months to three years old) are automatically put up on the Stockbull Finder. The breeder’s contact details are also displayed to facilitate sales enquiries.
Pedigree breeders in WHPR can manage their bulls through their Herdplus logins.
When logged in, they can take bulls off the Stockbull Finder (not for sale, injured etc), or add photos and enter comments about their bulls.
The Stockbull Finder is one of the biggest reasons pedigree breeders are joining WHPR as it automatically advertises their bulls for sale after their WHPR visit.
More than 500 breeders are in the programme, which ensures as many breeds and parts of the country as possible are covered before farmers start looking up bulls to buy on it.
The Stockbull Finder is the only search engine for beef bulls in Ireland where all of the bulls have been independently weighed and scored by ICBF before being displayed.
All of the €uro-Star details have come straight out of the ICBF database.
All of the bull’s weight recording, ancestry and genomic details are also shown. The breeder can also put up photos and comments about their bull.
So, from a bull purchaser’s point of view, all of the information needed to make a decision has been gathered in one location and verified by the ICBF and breed societies.
How to access it?
1 Go to www.icbf.com and click on the Stockbull Finder logo on the home page
2 Put in your search criteria as regards:
3 Scroll through the bulls that came back from your search.
Click on the owner’s name to get the phone number to ring, to enquire about possibly buying the bull.
For example, the following is what the Stockbull Finder brings back when the following criteria are put into it:
55 young pedigree Limousin bulls (10 months to three years old) were returned. The first few are shown below. So, taking the third bull down as an example ‘IE151602010520’:
What performance recording brings
1 Increased buyer confidence:
Pedigree Breeders taking part in the WHPR programme are voluntarily getting their whole pedigree herd independently assessed by ICBF annually.
Measurements and weights are recorded on all pedigree animals.
Participating herds also receive spot check visits from ICBF, to validate the herd’s data.
Farmers going to purchase bulls either privately or at a sale, naturally enough, want to have the most up-to-date and accurate index information available to them.
A bull purchased with a ‘WHPR’ stamp will have been at least weighed by ICBF.
This data will be publicly displayed by ICBF so a purchaser is fully aware of all available data before making a purchasing decision.
2 €uro-Stars & Reliability %:
The more pedigree breeders who get their herd’s performance recorded, the more accurate the whole €uro-Star system becomes for everyone.
Scoring and weighing will increase the reliability % of an animal’s €uro-Stars.
The €uro-Stars of low-reliability animals are more likely to change.
3 WHPR stamp:
Animals in participating herds will have a ‘Stamp’ displayed beside their €uro-Stars so as they are clearly identified as having come from a performance -recorded herd.
New online tool for bull buyers and sellers
What is the whole herd performance recording and what does it do?