What is the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) and where can it be found
DairyBeef 500 Advisor, Gordon Peppard takes an in depth look at the Commercial Beef Value (CBV), a useful tool for beef farmers, particularly when it comes to purchasing calves this spring.
By understanding and making use of the Commercial Beef Value, farmers can make more informed decisions, maximise their production and ultimately increase profitability. But what exactly is the Commercial Beef Value and where can it be found?
What is the Commercial Beef Value?
The Commercial Beef Value is a tool launched by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) in late 2021. It gives an insight into an individual animal’s genetic merit and their potential for beef production based on their parentage.
Compromising of key beef production traits, including: carcass weight, feed intake, factory in-spec, carcass conformation, age at finish, carbon, and docility, when used as a selection tool for identifying high merit animals at purchasing, it will allow for the identification of faster growing, better shaped, increased feed efficiency and more docile animals.
One of the key factors to profitable dairy calf to beef farming is purchasing the right calf. This applies to all calf to beef systems no matter whether you operate a heifer, steer, or bull system or whether finishing dairy x dairy animals, or early or late maturing beef animals, as there can be massive variation in the beef merits of these calves even within breeds.
Research has shown that calves bred from higher genetic merit beef bulls have higher carcass weights, better conformation and are more likely to meet factory specifications than calves bred from lower genetic beef bulls. However, discovering which calf is likely to exhibit good beefing qualities over their lifetime can be difficult when you are purchasing them at two to four weeks of age; once healthy, these calves can all visually look the same at this stage.
Also read: More options and higher profits from high CBV animals
This is where the new Commercial Beef Value will make it easier for farmers to know how each calf is expected to perform over their lifetime and, as a result, can determine a realistic value that the calf is worth at a point of purchase.
How is the Commercial Beef Value generated for each animal?
The CBV is a value that ICBF is now generating on all cattle that are likely to be finished as beef cattle. In order for this value to be generated, each calf must have a sire recorded when registered. Purchasing calves with an unknown sire, one is most certainly in the dark as to their genetic potential. The CBV value is available through the profile section of the ICBF Herdplus account and on mart boards where animals are genotyped.
Figure 1: An example of a Commercial Beef Value profile of a typical dairy calf to beef system
A CBV Catalogue can also be created for eligible animals on HerdPlus and farmers who want to sell animals directly off farm can generate this catalogue to give potential buyers an insight into the genetic value of the animal destined for beef production, this allows the potential buyer to make more informed decisions when purchasing animals.
Also read: Making CBV data more accessible
The CBV is expressed as a € value and has a star rating (from 1 to 5) with both ‘within breed type’ and ‘across breed’. There are three ‘within breed type’ categories: Suckler (beef sire and beef dam); Dairy x Beef (one dairy parent and one beef parent); and Dairy x Dairy (dairy sire and dairy dam).
Figure 2: CBV Star rating percentiles
Why do some animals have no CBV information displayed?
Although ways to access CBV data are outlined above, there are some occasions when CBV data may not be available. The main reasons why an animal will not have CBV information displayed include:
- If the animal is missing a sire.
- If the recorded sire wasn’t in the same herd as the dam.
- If a matching AI serve wasn’t recorded at some point between 270 – 305 days prior to the animal’s date of birth.
- If the animal is pedigree.
- If the animal is female and has calved.
- Mart boards will only display CBV’s where sire has been recorded and animal has been genotyped.
Upcoming webinar
The Teagasc DairyBeef 500 team, along with industry stakeholders, and programme farmers, will host a live online webinar on Thursday, 16th January 2025, which will commence at 8pm.
This webinar will equip anyone thinking of rearing calves in 2025 with essential information on calf sourcing, identifying calves of higher genetic merit and growth potential, and will discuss the key factors in maximising performance in the finishing period.
For further information on the DairyBeef 500 Campaign, click here.