Sales_A4 30/10/2014 10:45 Page 1
€URO-STARS
IN ACTION In the Sales Ring For a producer of goods in any industry - providing what the customer wants – is one of the most basic and fundamental rules of thumb that must be followed. Breed Society Sales For pedigree beef breeders in Ireland though – where do €uro-Stars rank on the checklist of things to have got right before they head to a sale with a bull? If there was a strong message coming back from farmers that good €uro-Star ratings are something that they want – then one would expect the majority of bulls being brought to bull
sales to have above average €uro-Star ratings. If €uro-Star ratings were seen as irrelevant by both pedigree breeders and commercial farmers than the distribution of €uro-stars in bull sales catalogues would be largely random with no trend showing. Following is an analysis of the ‘Terminal Index’ €uro-Star ratings for pedigree beef bulls that were entered into a random selection of breed society bull sales in 2013 & 2014. In all of these sales – there was no minimum entry requirement set on €uro-Stars.
SIMMENTAL BULL SALE – ROSCOMMON – 2nd NOVEMBER 2013 Terminal Index €uro – Stars
Number of Bulls entered into the Sale 24 8 5 6 4 3 1 1 0 0 0
5
10
15
20
25
• 71% of bulls entered into the sale had at least 4 €uro-Stars for the ‘Terminal Index’. • 9 of the top 10 prices were paid for bulls with at least 4 stars for the ‘Terminal Index’.
‘Curaheen Drifter’ bred by David Wall, Newcastle, Co.Dublin was the top priced bull at the Irish Simmental Society’s Premier bull sale (November 2013), selling for €18,500. He was a 4.5 star bull for the Terminal Index & Carcass Conformation and was 5 stars for Carcass Weight.