SCEP or Sceptical

I'd say it's more a scheme which suits pedigree cattle more so than commercials.

Definitely continental biased.

If they were 4 stars when they were genotyped They were eligible at the end of the scheeme

It definitely is a flawed system. I joined last week and as I posted in the chic chat thread nearly all the feeder cull dairy cows that are in the herd are 5 star including pure Jersey and crossbred Jersey cows. It's a ridiculous system that promotes dairy beef over beef bred animals.

That’s been mentioned here before, also a bias to PG/Munster bulls. Herdplus has done harm to beef production, but maybe that’s the intention

I have given up trying to understand how they calculate star ratings for cows. It's a pile of nonsense if you ask me. I think its gimmick to sell more of c AI straws to be honest. Attached is a screenshot of one of my worst rated cows. One star since forever. 12 lactation, 16 calves, adg never below 1kg even with multiple sets of twins. And mainly heifer calves. Bulls hitting above 1.4 to 1.5kg. Extremely quiet, good for milk. Calving interval of exactly 365 over 12 lactations. She wouldn't breed my best calf but she would hold her own in the middle of the pack. You would think with that much data behind a cow she would be higher than 1 star. She is not my only example of abnormal star scoring. Some too high, some to low. Wouldn't instill confidence in the calculations/genomic testing

Interesting article on Agriland about weanling weights from starred cows -

It’s on Agfood, click on SCEP, the numbers for the six years and the reference number are there.

Interesting as in no definitive conclusion can be obtained to say the star rating is progressing beef progeny. Less than half of the 1000e weanlings are from 4 and 5 star herds and over half are from 1 to 3 star herds. Marginal difference at best. If the star rating was credible this differential should be significantly higher. Load of assumptions then from the icbf commentator about meal quantity fed and cow size with no data to back it up. Its no wonder there's still no increase in certainty around the star rating since 2015 if this is the level of data analysis the icbf are presenting. If a 12 year old presented that you would have to bite your tongue instead of laughing i out of the room. Another quango masquerading as intellects.

There is inaccuracies been input for sure. But these would be consistent across the entierity of data range and should balance out. All one needs to do is look inside there own herd and compare the stars across their cows and try comprehend why some cows are rated 1 star when they should be 4 or 5 and why some cows are 4 or 5 when they should be 1. Surely the guy that inputs incorrect birth dates is doing it for his 1 star cows as well as his 5 star cows.

They had a fella on the FJ podcast from bord bia and he said they only require paperwork for the previous 6 months

You are paid for the training. It’s part of the scheme which you sign up knowing you have to do it.

Would it better if they dropped the payment per cow by 10 euros and then said you get 158 quid for the days training.

We're gonna be reducing numbers year on year. The 50% 4/5 star for eligible females won't be a major problem but it will as years go by and the ratio increases.

Does anyone know can you reset the reference no. annually or are you stuck with the no. you pick now?

I'm loathe to leave money behind but not keen on being tied to a higher no. of sucklers than I'd like as well as struggling with the stars.

It's in Agfood where you apply. It shows your reference numbers and best years. You can set a number then based on what you want

Yeah, if your programme reference no is 20 and you pick 20 as your 2023 reference no then you need to calve at least 10 cows, have 14 animals for genotyping and have at least 10 four/five star genotyped cows/heifers over 16 months in October. You could have 30 cows now but you only get paid on 20.

Yeah, I think so. You have to calve at least 50% of the reference no you put in each year afaik.

Just a follow up on this as I went to the mart last week with 2 weanlings. Both wintered out and no meal.

First lad off a 4 star cow - nice weanling - 290 kg and made €890. Nothing special, price a little disappointing if anything.

The second lad was lighter and out of a 2 star cow. 270kg. Made €1,120. As good a weanling as you'd see any day even if I do say so myself!

So, I'm still torn between joining the scheme but having to replace half of the cows to his the star requirement or just concentrate on the cows that are returning the best weanlings irrespective of stars!! (or getting rid of them altogether which is what I was doing before I got the good price for the second lad cause I was having a **** week with them!!!).

That’s something my advisor emphasized. It’s not the end of the world with SCEP if you get a penalty or two and lose some money if you still get most of it, you would need to look at how the penalties are applied and see if the scheme still suits you. The penalties do get a bit more severe as the scheme progresses tho.

I think what this highlights clearly is that anyone with a herd of good cows producing good weanlings would be mad to join. You'll get the value of the grant and more when you sell the good calf, and no hoops to jump through. Plus whatever value you put on looking at or working with quality stock.

No reason why good cows can’t be 5 star