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EPD Basics

Northern Rancher said:
Exactly!!!! The problem is that the marketing of the extreme is where it's at now a days.
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Wonder if people will start "Fudging" their calf data "Downward" when the extreme cattle top out? :lol:
 
Sheesh pages later I come in for lunch. Do you guys all have cows that feed themselves.... I know you do Northern...heheheh

Everyone is making some good points.

Badlands I am never disappointed in the results based on numbers from proven bulls. My point was, trying the next new bull that is advertised, that has all the numbers a breeder has worked hard to balance, isn't a sure deal. Because of a little fib here and one there the young bull isn't really what is advertised. By the time the EPD system fixes those fibs, the damage is done as you have 20 cows bred or calved or 5 daughters that are coming into production that all of a sudden are out of a bull that didn't REALLY have the numbers claimed.

Katrina is right about her saying that a bull with those epds based on fudged numbers that goes into a commercial herd never gets corrected. The commercial breeder is upset, maybe to the point of never buying from that breeder again, but what if the breeder had used a new bull with low accuracy? It wasn't his fault, totally.

Katrina, for you to see the differences in EPD's, it would mean that your cows of different genetic background would have to be split between the bulls as well.

You are correct in saying bull A will sire this kind of calf on a Hereford, but a somewhat different calf on the baldies and different again on the Tarentaise. But between the Tarantaise cows bull A and bull B would have even calves if their numbers were even (and proven). If they had a wide difference in their numbers (proven numbers) you would see it.

Buying a young bull by the numbers alone for a commercial herd is probably the worst thing anyone can do to themselves. Buying sons of a proven bull for the traits you desire in your herd is a different story.
 
Because of a little fib here and one there the young bull isn't really what is advertised.
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I guess I'm not one to say it was a fib, Jason.

It is called Mendellian Sampling.

They don't all breed the way their Interim EPD say they should.

I'm positive that you have cows in your herd that were born with a high BW, get saddled with it with their Interim EPD their whole life while producing below average BW calves every year.

Does this mean you fibbed on her BW?

No, it means that her progeny performance doesn't match her own. She doesn't repeat herself.

We only notice it in the young bulls because we have some expectation we want them to live up to, and it is obvious when they don't. The ones that move the other way(better) don't get discovered because their Interim EPD were such that they were sold into commercial herds. Did the owners fib on them, too? Nope, they still have Mendellian Sampling going on, we just don't find them since they never have progeny go into the database.

Badlands
 
Badlands, I can buy that there are cases where an animal will buck the trend on its initial epd.

Those animals would have a wider range, or a flatter bell curve on their epd.

Case in point. I bought some heifers that are all bred to the same bull. I have no idea about his epds yet, but the heifers are very even and their numbers all are close. The first calf popped out at 71 pounds, I pulled the second one at 96 pounds. If I get every other calf big and small, the bull is inconsistant and his epd would be averaged in the middle. If the 96 pounder is the only one, his mother will get a bump on her bw epd. If the 71 pounder is the only small one, his mother will be bumped down.

The bull was bought based on being an easy calver. If he had an actual bw of 95 pounds, I doubt he would have been bought for heifers, regardless of his epds. If his epd was +2 based on parentage data, a large bw would bump that. A lil fib would keep it lower. Not every breeder will fib, but some do.
 
laxy ace wrote:

Bull one has an actual bw of 80 at a ratio of 97. His dam has an actual bw of 80 and a ratio of 106. Her bw epd is a 3.5.
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Could you please tell me what calculation you use to come up with 3.5?
I,m trying to figure this EPD stuff out and I have no clue as to how they come up with the, say, +40, - whatever. Thanks for any responses that help this challenged person

Dick
 

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