There is some real excitement in the beef industry at present with the development of the much talked about ‘E-Star’ indexes.
A long-term project for Neil, who has played the key role in kick- starting this new initiative, we are fielding many questions about these ‘fit-for-purpose’ new Indexes. These are essentially a continued re-evaluation of the ‘Hill Country Indexes’ that Fossil Creek Angus have been utilising for the past 6 years in their bull catalogue. We now have a total of six Angus studs from around NZ on board with the E-Star programme – having been derived by the experts at Abacus Bio and reality–checked by all of the six studs including Fossil Creek.
Following genuine concern that the generic Angus ‘Self-Replacing’ Index is too focused on a ‘days to calving’ trait and doesn’t give separate weighting to important maternal traits verses terminal traits, Neil went on a crusade nearly a decade ago to provide Indexes that were more transparent and suitable for each individual farmer and didn’t come with the risk of buying the completely wrong bull for your herd. Neil says “Its fantastic that many Angus studs have seen that they must do this to ensure that their clients make a more accurate, informed decision. While it has been limited to just six pioneering studs at this stage, there will be a number of studs coming on board the programme over the next 12 months”.
The four E Star Indexes are:
• MATERNAL INDEX:
This is a grouping of traits specifically related to the beef cow/calf operation. Desired outcomes include improving fertility and moderating cow size.
• TERMINAL INDEX:
An index that highlights those animals which are going to grow fast to suitable carcase weights with high yields and good eating through Intramuscular Fats.
• EFFICIENCY INDEX:
This index can be used on its own to identify animals which are superior for efficiency, which gives the beef industry further strength when it comes to environmental sustainability conversations.
• HEIFER DIRECT:
Designed to be a standalone selection tool for ranking bulls as suitable for mating yearling heifers. This is a massive step forward for the NZ commercial beef industry.
Being able to assess every bull through traditional EBVs and be coupled with the strength of the E-Star assessment is groundbreaking and further adds to the ability for clients to ensure their bull buying decision is a good one – both on paper and in the paddock. The feedback from anyone that has read our bull catalogue is how easy it is now to draft off the bulls on paper that are best suited to your bull buying requirements – simply by looking at the E-Star chart and then drilling down further into individual traits.
