Two additional cattle breed societies have expressed no confidence in the revised Euro-star evaluations.
The Irish Parthenaise Cattle Society has taken the decision at a breed council meeting this evening (Friday, January 31) “to not publish any of the revised Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) Euro-star indices for pedigree animals going forward”.
The Irish Blonde D’Aquitaine Cattle Society has also issued a statement to Agriland saying it is supporting the other cattle breed society’s vote of no confidence in the Euro-star indices.
The Irish Blonde d’Aquitaine cattle society statement said: “The current Euro-Star index system as administered and conducted by ICBF is not fit for purpose.
“We offer support to our fellow societies and fully encourage other societies to follow suit by not publishing Euro-star values on their sale catalogs.”
In a statement to Agriland, the Irish Parthenaise Cattle Society said it “has no confidence in the methodology or algorithms used to calculate the revised breeding indices for Parthenaise as a breed.”
According to the society: “The traditional traits of the Parthenaise breed of milk, easy calving and calf vigour are being interfered with and the ‘one size fits all’ approach that ICBF controls, is interfering with our breeding programme. “
The Parthenaise society said it “has major concerns about how breed information is being filtered to suit certain traits outside of the breed’s control”.
The Irish Simmental Cattle Society, Irish Salers Cattle Society and Irish Charolais Cattle Society have also voted to remove the indices from their respective society cattle sale catalogues.