The star-rating system for suckler-bred cattle is a cattle-breeding tool which many suckler farmers have great confidence in and look to as a guide when selecting replacement heifers for their suckler herds.
Other suckler farmers are more sceptical of the star-rating system and are confident they can breed top-quality weanlings from cows with lower star ratings.
At a recent Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) information meeting, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation’s (ICBF’s) Chris Daly presented data showing the correlation between weanling sale price and the star-rating of the dam.
He explained: “The ICBF gets data from about 80-90% of the marts. We get the sale prices and the weights so we can easily see what kind of cows were producing these weanlings that are selling for over €1,000.”
The table below shows the correlation between dam stars and weanling sale:
As the table above indicates, 47% of the weanlings that made over €1,000 were from four and five-star dams while 52% of the weanlings selling for over €1,000 were from one, two and three-star cows.
The low star-rating cows produced weanlings that were slightly lighter but sold for a higher average price per kilo.
“Nearly half of those weanlings making over €1,000 (based on 2022 data) were coming from four or five-star cows or cows that would have been eligible under the old Beef Data Genomics Programme (BDGP) and will be eligible in the SCEP,” Daly said.
Speaking to Agriland after the event, he further explained the data: “The five-star dams are producing the highest percentage of weanlings making over €1,000.
“What farmers have to remember too is that the progeny from the one-star cows potentially need a lot more meal because there’s less milk and there’s potentially longer calving intervals with the lower-star cows.
“Looking at other data, we can see the five-star cows were producing the heaviest weanlings but the cows themselves were lightest.
“Heavy weanlings means more weaning weight to sell but lighter cows offer big savings in feed intake.”
Commenting on the level of dairy-bred cows in the suckler herd, Daly said: “In the last 10 years, it has stayed the same. 77% of the suckler herd are cows with a beef dam and a beef sire and 23% of the suckler herd are first cross off the dairy herd, so that hasn’t increased in the past 10 years.
“The idea that this system is pushing more of the suckler herd towards more dairy-cross cows isn’t the case,” he said.