EPD NUMBERS

[pricefarm]

I have been looking for a new bull to breed heifers to. I found a nice one I think. The bull is reg but they haven't done the DNA testing on the bull yet. So all you have to go by is the bulls dam and sire numbers. Is that good enough? Iam not to up on all of these epds and how they work. The bull Iam looking at reg#is 18885865

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Is that an Angus bull?

 

[jscunn]

The thing that bothers me about the bull is the lack of performance info on him. I don't particularly trust the DNA stuff yet. I would not ever buy a "heifer" bull that doesn't have a documented BW and ratio in a contemporary group from someone I trust not to fudge the numbers. Since he has no EPDs and his dam only has interims, I can assume no performance info was documented on him. He could have weighed 50 lbs at birth or 105 and they had to take him out the side door. I don't know, gives me pause on him. Decent enough looking bull in the picture and the pedigree doesn't scare me but it isn't sleep all night safe for some people.. Like everything else in this world is the price right? Have you shopped around any? I bet plenty of bulls for sale in your area, find them and compare.

 

[Air gator]

I would wait until the DNA testing.
If this bull is out of Limelight you need to know if the bull is going to take after his daddy on HP.
The breed average edp for HP is 10.1 and Limelight is 2.4. Granted there are many Angus bulls with below average HP epds.
However, I would not breed to a bull with an HP that low. His mother's HP epd is 12. If this bull takes after his mama, then you could be OK. If not, trust me, it is time to move on. You don't want to have a few crops of heifers who struggle to get bred. The one thing that the HP epd has shown is that SC is not a good indicator of HP...at least for the bulls in the top 2 or 3 percent of SC (Thanks to Son of a Butch for pointing that out).

 

[pricefarm]

Is that an Angus bull?

Yes

 

[Midtenn]

I like the looks of that bull ok. Epd's aside, he looks like a bull I'd use on cows, looks like good length, but too much bone and head for a heifer bull for me. Now if he was ce 12 and bw 0 with some accuracy I might use him. I didn't look up his AAA number but sounds like he doesn't have any accuracy. Fwiw I used a low accuracy limelight son a few years ago on 22 Heifers and had excellent results, but mine was ce 16 and bw -2.something. When the numbers are that much extreme I think accuracy is less important.

 

[pricefarm]

Well I bought this bull today. Pretty nice bull. I'll be turning him out on some heifers in a month or so.

 

[Txpiney]

Please post some pics of him when you get him home. From the pic you posted, I like the looks of him.

 

[bse]

For me it would depend on how many heifers, if you have 30 days, run the test and feel better about it, with just parents average, CED would be 7 that would scare most around here, marginal for me.

 

[pricefarm]