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EPD Basics

On a mixed breed cowherd it would take alot of cows bred to each bull to really see much if any difference. The fact about progeny testing in commercial herds is that most commercial ranchers that do alot of A'I'ing already have a breeding program in place and aren't too interested in using alot of unproven bulls and they should be 'PAID' for proving young sires. I went to a meeting in Calgary with some other commercial ranchers to meet with the Canadian Angus association about setting up just such a deal. There was alot of shock and dismay when that fact was made abundantly clear by all the commercial men at the meeting. If a purebred guy wants to progeny test his bulls as far as carcass goes-buy a set of calves from one of your customers and have at it. It's not that hard to set up financing to feed a pen or two at most custom lots. As for E.P.D's most ranchers walk into a pen of bulls and work backwards to the numbers-they eyeball the cattle trying to find bulls that are fit and sound enough to deliver their genetic worth to the cows rteproductive tract-then they might delve into the numbers a bit.
 
If you mate the cows randomly, the differences will pop right out. Just need a big enough groups of calves to see them, but that is true whether the cows are commercial or not. 15 head or so is a good start. This business of mating a 40 cow herd to 10 bulls is no good.



Jason, if you are using proven sires like you have suggested, you shouldn't be disappointed 4 out of 5 times, right? :wink:



Badlands
 
Katrina, if you were to randomly breed 2 or 3 A.I. sires to your cows on a gate run sort, the EPD's if accurate should show through in bw weaning weight and yearling weight. The difference or similarity of the numbers from the bulls should be apperant, over the average of your cows no matter their origin.
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If I understand this correctly I have to disagree with this jason. Because the gentic makeup of alot of our cows are differant.. From the herefords to 1/2, 1/3 1/8 tatentaise angus cross...They all come out as average... But you take my best commercial angus or hereford.. Then maybe the adverages would be apparant... I my opinion there are just way to many varables...It would take several years to show the accuracy........
 
Hi Badlands...gotta a quick question for you...

What level of accuracy do you consider proven? Which trait do you use? Or do you use number of progeny? Or none of the above :wink: I've been having this discussion with a couple others and we all have a different definition. What should we be using?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers---

TTB :wink:

PS It's suposed to be 60 or darn near 60 in your home country today...sounds like upstate NY is going to be snowy and darn cold!
 
Studs buy or lease bulls for many reasons.

Sometimes they do it to capitalize on the advertising money the breeder has already spent. It saves them promotion money. Jorgensen in the 70's, Hoff in the 80's, R&J at the same time, then over to Woodhill, Stevenson, GDAR and GT in the late 80's, then on to GAR in the early 90's, then to B/R, Connealy, SAF(now Sydgen), SAF, SAV, ER, etc.

Sometimes they find a willing participant to "groom" into breeding the type of bulls they want to complement (fix) the other bulls they have. Dave Duncan would be a good example of this, right up until the big D popped up.

Sometimes it helps to be a rep, if you have a good bull of a less marketable breed.

Lots of reasons.

Badlands
 
Northern Rancher said:
On a mixed breed cowherd it would take alot of cows bred to each bull to really see much if any difference. The fact about progeny testing in commercial herds is that most commercial ranchers that do alot of A'I'ing already have a breeding program in place and aren't too interested in using alot of unproven bulls and they should be 'PAID' for proving young sires. I went to a meeting in Calgary with some other commercial ranchers to meet with the Canadian Angus association about setting up just such a deal. There was alot of shock and dismay when that fact was made abundantly clear by all the commercial men at the meeting. If a purebred guy wants to progeny test his bulls as far as carcass goes-buy a set of calves from one of your customers and have at it. It's not that hard to set up financing to feed a pen or two at most custom lots. As for E.P.D's most ranchers walk into a pen of bulls and work backwards to the numbers-they eyeball the cattle trying to find bulls that are fit and sound enough to deliver their genetic worth to the cows rteproductive tract-then they might delve into the numbers a bit.
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The Char Association here has a test program for bulls and many of the breeders use it. Especially before ultrasound was accepted as a means for computing EPD's. We work with the commercial guys all the time.

And I understand totally how EPD's are to used. They are nothing more than another base for developing a judgement. Not and END-ALL to the GUESSWORK in the system.

My main point is that the commercial guy who doesn't use EPD's is not using a world of collected data that is available to him. And to say that they are not accurate just because they have some unsubstantiated rumors/claims that some breeders cheat is pretty ignorant in my opinion.

On a mixed breed cowherd it would take alot of cows bred to each bull to really see much if any difference.
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A few years ago I enrolled a bull in a Conception to Consumer progam, where 50 cows were randomly cut selected and bred to 3 different bulls. The EPD numbers on these bulls were dead inline with the BW's, WW's, YW's, and carcass data. I admit, I had been a little skeptical of EPD's before that experiment but have seen firsthand how close they really are to actual measurements.

It's a hell of a slap in the face to go through all the trouble to weigh newborns through the system, gather all the data expected and have someone tell me that EPD's aren't to be used because they have heard a rumor somebody cheated on the data. :mad:

By all means use Phenotypic Selection methods! No one is arguing that.

But when you are done looking there is actual data available to help back up your choice.
 
Some of being "proven" is just as much art as science, TTB.

I don't mean to be evasive, but it will vary from breeder to breeder.

I like high accuracy, but if I can't get it, then I look back in the pedigree to evaluate how a couple generations have bred relative to their parental EPD. Are they breeding on like their pedigre, or are they changing? If they are changing, then it will put the other EPD that take longer to measure (DCE, Stay, Milk, HFR PRG, ME) out of whack relative to the pedigree.

In other words, if I like 5 or less for ME EPD, and I find a bull that is 80 for YW, then I suspect that he will either come up for ME or go down for YW as his daughters come into production. This business of guys talking about watching ME while rolling generations to still get more growth is BS. You must certainly know who I am refering to!

It takes TIME to build accuracy in the ME EPD. Really, there are not very many REALLY proven bulls for that trait, so art has to come into play. I will be a small breeder for a long time, and some of my bulls sure won't see heavy use, since I have no established reputation, therefore, I am forced to use art and other science (biological relationships), rather than EPD accuracy science. Some of that just gets down to not using bulls from folks that don't weigh mature cows. When you begin to set a few limits, you naturally gravitate towards others that think like you. It limits some genetics, but also acts like a ratchett to limit troubles, too.

Well, you can tell that ME is important to me. +5 is about the highest I will go. In establishing the variation I want to get started, I might use a couple higher bulls on some lower ME cows. For my country in MT, I like just a little above average WW and YW, but that is dangerous to use percentiles to breed with, as averages change over time. So, 35-40 WW 65-75 YW, below average BW, 15-20 milk. Pretty "vanilla" sort of stuff isn't it? But, with my background in FE the last 5 years, I intend to incorporate that, too.

Moderate frame, usable cattle with acceptable growth and carcass, with FE.

I'll probably outcross to some Black Angus cattle that are documented for FE, so I don't have to wait as long or spend as much money. It won't be the BA that are currently being usedfor outcrosses, although some of them are FE, and will be more FE than mine, at least to start with.


Yep, mom flew in from Rapid City last night for a visit. It was a hard enough frost there yesterday AM they slide in the ditch getting to the airport, but it warmed up. She land here and today we have about 8" of snow which is more than what we have had all year.


Take care.


Badlands
 
Mike I worked for one of the founders of the Conception to Consumer program in Canada so I have a good grasp of progeny testing for crying out loud. My point is E.P.D's are only a small part of the equation not the entire equation like some would have you believe. The best E.P.D's in the world are no good if the bull is too fat-too sore- or whatever to breed cows. Like I said-select your bulls from the ground up then look at the numbers.
 
It's a hell of a slap in the face to go through all the trouble to weigh newborns through the system, gather all the data expected and have someone tell me that EPD's aren't to be used because they have heard a rumor somebody cheated on the data
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.

All I can say is get over it, cause it happens........ I'll be damn if I'm going to put up on a public forum how and what........
 
My point is E.P.D's are only a small part of the equation not the entire equation like some would have you believe.
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I agree. But can you name me one person who has EVER told you, or anyone else, that EPD's are the entire equation in bull/cow selection?

The best E.P.D's in the world are no good if the bull is too fat-too sore- or whatever to breed cows.
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Where did this come from? I thought we were talking about EPD's?
Being fat will not change a bulls EPD's.
 
katrina:

One person cheating on a couple sires and a couple hundred calves doesn't discredit or pull out of whack the other 6,000,000 animals in the database.

FWIW, if you want the database with the fewest cheaters, you need to use Tarentaise. They have the "best" data in terms of making it through the filters that are used to catch cheaters. I think they had little incentive to cheat, as there isn't too much money in them! LOL.

Badlands
 
katrina said:
It's a hell of a slap in the face to go through all the trouble to weigh newborns through the system, gather all the data expected and have someone tell me that EPD's aren't to be used because they have heard a rumor somebody cheated on the data
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.

All I can say is get over it, cause it happens........ I'll be damn if I'm going to put up on a public forum how and what........
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I didn't figure you could, or would......................... :lol:
 
One person cheating on a couple sires and a couple hundred calves doesn't discredit or pull out of whack the other 6,000,000 animals in the database.
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In what database... I'm talking breeders who sell bulls to ranchers.....
Now ya did it.....You hurt my feelings :cry: I like my tatentaise.....
 
Always been fond of the Tarentaise too Katrina.. Don't worry, you aren't the only one..

That being said, I only have 3 unregistered bulls,and one is only 25%...

That being said, I always though a nice ross would be 1/4 Tarentaise 3/4 british cows... The ones I have seen have been super nice cows..
 
Badlands said:
Some of being "proven" is just as much art as science, TTB.

I don't mean to be evasive, but it will vary from breeder to breeder.

I like high accuracy, but if I can't get it, then I look back in the pedigree to evaluate how a couple generations have bred relative to their parental EPD. Are they breeding on like their pedigre, or are they changing? If they are changing, then it will put the other EPD that take longer to measure (DCE, Stay, Milk, HFR PRG, ME) out of whack relative to the pedigree.

In other words, if I like 5 or less for ME EPD, and I find a bull that is 80 for YW, then I suspect that he will either come up for ME or go down for YW as his daughters come into production. This business of guys talking about watching ME while rolling generations to still get more growth is BS. You must certainly know who I am refering to!

It takes TIME to build accuracy in the ME EPD. Really, there are not very many REALLY proven bulls for that trait, so art has to come into play. I will be a small breeder for a long time, and some of my bulls sure won't see heavy use, since I have no established reputation, therefore, I am forced to use art and other science (biological relationships), rather than EPD accuracy science. Some of that just gets down to not using bulls from folks that don't weigh mature cows. When you begin to set a few limits, you naturally gravitate towards others that think like you. It limits some genetics, but also acts like a ratchett to limit troubles, too.

Well, you can tell that ME is important to me. +5 is about the highest I will go. In establishing the variation I want to get started, I might use a couple higher bulls on some lower ME cows. For my country in MT, I like just a little above average WW and YW, but that is dangerous to use percentiles to breed with, as averages change over time. So, 35-40 WW 65-75 YW, below average BW, 15-20 milk. Pretty "vanilla" sort of stuff isn't it? But, with my background in FE the last 5 years, I intend to incorporate that, too.

Moderate frame, usable cattle with acceptable growth and carcass, with FE.

I'll probably outcross to some Black Angus cattle that are documented for FE, so I don't have to wait as long or spend as much money. It won't be the BA that are currently being usedfor outcrosses, although some of them are FE, and will be more FE than mine, at least to start with.


Yep, mom flew in from Rapid City last night for a visit. It was a hard enough frost there yesterday AM they slide in the ditch getting to the airport, but it warmed up. She land here and today we have about 8" of snow which is more than what we have had all year.


Take care.


Badlands
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Thanks...I ask because you and others who are pretty up on the EPD deal tend to advice ranchers & farmers to use proven genetics...but that's tough to do without a little more discussion on what proven is and what it means. I hear the statement a lot and wanted some clarification.

I'll have to ruminate over the rest of the stuff you said and will probably ask more questions. I hope that's ok.

I'm going to probe you a little more, and hope that's ok. I'm only doing so because I think you have good knowledge that we all can learn from.

You are apparently doing work on feed efficiency...what do you think the correlation (or maybe relationship is the better term) between feed efficiency and ME is? If cattle convert well does that mean that they maintain well? My gut feeling is that some cattle convert well but don't do so well on ME, while others do well on both, and others do poorly on both. I'll be interested to hear what you say.

I have a good friend who manages a research center in WV where they do a lot of feed efficiency work--as a matter of fact they include their work on the station's bull test. The most efficient bull they've ever had was also one of the worst gaining. Double edged sword, perhaps???

How do EPD's account for long or short gestation cattle? I know they do so by BW, but just because a critter is long gestation or short gestation in one setting doesn't mean they'll always be. More than one breeder has gotten trapped by paying the gestation length game. My guess is that lots of proven curve benders are really short gestation high growth cattle, is this right?

Again, thank you!

Cheers---

TTB :wink:
 
katrina,

I breed registered Tarentaise.

http://www.ranchers.net/photopost/showgallery.php?mcats=all&si=&what=allfields&name=badlands&when=0&whenterm=&condition=and


Started with 41 head in '96 and cut down when I went back to school when I entered a share deal with my partner. I'm pretty well over them, even though I like them alot. I'm just tired of "irrelavence".



It doesn't really matter if the bulls are sold to other breeders or not, unless the other breeder is also cheating them in the same way. But, when they go out into the bigger population, they will be found.

I kind of figured I "gave you the answer you wanted" yesterday, judging by your big "Thank You!" reply. :wink: But, it doesn't mean you understand the big picture just because I gave you a way to quantify your opinion/experience.

Don't get hung up on it, just don't use those breeders bulls! Those bulls have so little pull on their relatives beyond sons and daughters that it doesn't matter. For each generation removed you need exponentially more animals reported to affect the EPD of those relatives.

Even in a breed with a smaller number of animals like Tarentaise with numbers being crunched on around 110,000 head, it would take a concentrated effort by a group of breeders to fudge the numbers enough to mess with the population parameters.

Badlands
 
I'm going to probe you a little more, and hope that's ok. I'm only doing so because I think you have good knowledge that we all can learn from.
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LOL, don't flatter me too much, it might go to my head. I have been exposed to a different way of looking at some of these things because of the way my "career" has gone. Different doesn't imply better.

You are apparently doing work on feed efficiency...what do you think the correlation (or maybe relationship is the better term) between feed efficiency and ME is?
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I don't know for sure, but my guess is that they have nothing (or very little) to do with each other in terms of biological efficiency. However, making the cow fit the production and marketing environment most appropriately will result in better economic efficiency. Do you see the difference? If you match the cow correctly, you don't have to feed more, on the other hand, she doesn't just put fat on her back doing nothing. Either is a waste of resources, decreasing economic efficiency.


If cattle convert well does that mean that they maintain well?My gut feeling is that some cattle convert well but don't do so well on ME, while others do well on both, and others do poorly on both. I'll be interested to hear what you say.
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I agree with your observation. I don't think there is much relationship between the two. Some cows are fat because they eat a lot, and some cows are fat because they are efficient. If you equate FAT to MAINTENANCE or to EFFICIENT cows, you make an assumption that I believe is incorrect, or at least, only half correct.



I have a good friend who manages a research center in WV where they do a lot of feed efficiency work--as a matter of fact they include their work on the station's bull test. The most efficient bull they've ever had was also one of the worst gaining. Double edged sword, perhaps???
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I am hopeful that I will be able to assist them in the future. I just need to find out where I will land to move forward from here with them. I talked to them last Fall, and met with Mr. Felton in December.

How do EPD's account for long or short gestation cattle? I know they do so by BW, but just because a critter is long gestation or short gestation in one setting doesn't mean they'll always be. More than one breeder has gotten trapped by paying the gestation length game. My guess is that lots of proven curve benders are really short gestation high growth cattle, is this right?
Click to expand...
I would have to take a look at this one, as I haven't for some time. In most instances, when decreased gestation length was selected for, BW went down, but at FT. Keough, when they did it, BW went up. I don't know what that implies. Maybe they come out when they are done? Maybe some cattle are "done" more quickly, and that can be selected for. Maybe some cattle need to be a certain weight to be done? If they are "done" more quickly before birth and end up with a rapid rate of maturity, there may be implications for making curvebenders.

Curvebenders aren't over-rated, but the term is over-used. To me, it isn't complete until the bull has 5 - 6 year old daughters than have been weighed. Kind of puts the kibosh on marketing yearlings, doesn't it?

Badlands
 
Mike the point I was trying to make is that soundness and breeding ability impact any operation far more than E.P.D's do-the best number bull in the world is useless if he can't get the job done in the breeding field. That's why I'll tell you again-the bull has to be right physically before most coimmercial breeders will look at his numbers. They both are selection tools that should be used together. The same can be said for females-I don't care if she has the greatest numbers the Angus association can generate-if she's gone at four because of udder or feet she's in essence worthless to me.
 
Northern Rancher said:
Mike the point I was trying to make is that soundness and breeding ability impact any operation far more than E.P.D's do-the best number bull in the world is useless if he can't get the job done in the breeding field. That's why I'll tell you again-the bull has to be right physically before most coimmercial breeders will look at his numbers. They both are selection tools that should be used together. The same can be said for females-I don't care if she has the greatest numbers the Angus association can generate-if she's gone at four because of udder or feet she's in essence worthless to me.
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We are in agreement more than you know.

The problem most people don't realize is that High EPDs might not be what some need. You can use EPD's for selections that go the other way too!

i.e. for replacements, High YW EPD's aren't the best priority.
 

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