In identifying the overall winners of the FBD €uro-Star €200 herd competition, a rigorous three-stage process was followed by the panel of judges from ICBF, Teagasc and the Irish Farmers Journal. This included:

  • An initial shortlisting of the top 100 herds in each category based on data from the ICBF database.
  • A further shortlisting, where additional data such as beef performance output and gross margin/profit data of the herd, were considered.
  • A final herd visit, where the 18 finalists were visited to identify the overall regional and national winners. To help with this, additional information was sought from the herd owners during the visit such as their herd breeding programme, grassland management, consideration of the environment and approaches to farm health and safety.
  • From this, each visited herd was given a final score, based on their performance in all three aspects of the competition. As a result, a rigorous, transparent process was clearly followed by the judges which will help to ensure that only excellent performing herds will be identified as the regional and overall winners of the competition.

    Commercial herds

    All HerdPlus herds participating in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), with 20 or more cows and using AI (three or more bulls, measured by the number of AI-sired calves born in the last year) are eligible for consideration for the FBD €uro-Star €200 herd competition.

    A number of key performance indicators have been used in the adjudication process, including a number of fertility traits, genetic indices and data recording completeness.

    Herds have been scored based on the following traits: calving interval, calves/cow/year, percentage calved in 22 to 26 months, percentage of birth weights recorded, replacement index of cows, replacement index of heifers, percentage increase of heifer’s replacement index over and above cow replacement index, percentage of cows weighed in the last 12 months and percentage of calves weighed in the last 12 months.

    Points have been allocated on a basis of percentile rank, with percentiles calculated from all eligible herds. Herds within the top 5% receive 10 points for that trait, nine points for the top 10%, eight points for the top 20% and so on. Herds that are not recording information, ie weights, receive zero points for that trait.

    Double points are awarded for calves/cow/year. An additional 10 points are awarded to Knowledge Transfer participating herds.

    Pedigree bull breeder herds

    All whole herd performance recording herds participating in BDGP, with 10 or more cows and using AI (three or more bulls, measured by the number of AI-sired calves) are eligible for consideration for the bull breeder award.

    A number of key performance indicators have been used in the adjudication process, including a number of fertility traits, data recording completeness and meeting market demands by producing BDGP eligible bulls (genotyped, four- or five-star bulls).

    Herds have been scored based on the 10 following traits: calving interval,calves/cow/year, percentage calved in 22 to 26 months, percentage of birth weights recorded, replacement index of cows, replacement index of heifers, percentage of cows weighed in the last 12 months, percentage of calves weighed in the last 12 months, percentage of inseminations recorded and percentage of BDGP-eligible bulls sold.

    Points have been allocated on a basis of percentile rank, with percentiles calculated from all eligible herds. Herds within the top 5% receive 10 points for that trait, nine points for the top 10%, eight points for the top 20% and so on. Herds that are not recording information, ie weights and inseminations, receive zero points for that trait.

    Judges’ comments

    The judges have been impressed with the quality of cattle they have seen over the past two weeks out on farms. Adam Woods said: “It’s really encouraging to see farmers with clear plans about where they are going and how they are going to hit targets in the next few years. One common theme coming through all the farms is that the simple systems are proving the best with focus being applied to a few key areas.

    Chris Daly said: “The benefits of having defined breeding objectives and clear targets are very evident on the farms we visited. All of the farms are using breeding indexes to their advantage while not losing sight of having quality functional cattle.

    Teagasc beef specialist Aidan Murray said: “It is great to see the farms reaping the benefits of BDGP. We have seen some great functional herds over the course of our judging, across both commercial and pedigree herds.”