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A Discussion About EPDs
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<blockquote data-quote="Brandonm2" data-source="post: 379523" data-attributes="member: 2095"><p>I have a lot of problems with breeding by the EPDs and I agree with most of the criticism. BUT most of these guys don't present any real alternatives.........</p><p></p><p> We could go back to the day of picking this bull over this other bull because some goofy show judge I have never met said this one's daddy was better at some show. Is that a better system??? </p><p></p><p>Or we could go back to the day when some old dude showed us on paper where this bull traces back to "The Great" Joe Bob the IXth bull 8 different ways in the pedigree. Now I never saw the Joe Bob bull and the breeder probably hadn't either and all we really knew about how great the "Great" was was because everybody we talked to and our daddy said he was "Great" and this bull may or may not look anything like his esteemed ancestor; but he is "linebred" so that automatically makes him good.......etc, etc. Is THAT really the system we want to be using to select our seedstock?????</p><p></p><p>Or we could go back to just "eye balling" and not taking anything else into consideration. I don't really know how to eyeball and tell that a bull comes from a lineage that does not marble well and it is kind of hard to identify the freak that throws the 100 pound birth weights just by eye balling him and all my eyeball tells me about a bull is that I like the way he looks today!! The other 30 half sibs back on the farm may have weaned off at 405 lbs; but the ONE in front of me LOOKS growthy. There were some really nice profiling growthy bulls that won ribbons at shows back in the 80s, whose daughters did not milk worth a diddly.....but they looked good. There CAN be information in the EPDs that I COULD actually use. I am a huge proponent of eye balling the cattle; but is that really the ONLY tool in the breeder's tool box??</p><p></p><p>Or we could just pick the bulls from the breeder who has the best "reputation". There are two kinds of reputations; the one that is built up over time by producing good cattle and excellent service and there is the kind generated by mailing out newsletter, catalogs, fliers, and magazine ads. I don't think you would lose TOO badly by just relying on the mysterious wisdom of the first type of reputation ranch. The second type of reputation ranch just means the guy has more money to spend on marketing. Either way, you are essentially just "multiplying" an elite breeder's genetics. There is nothing wrong with that; BUT as we have seen from some of the bull studs......their judgement is not always completely BRILLIANT either.</p><p></p><p>There is no EASY way to breed livestock. The numbers are not a magic bullet; but jettisoning the numbers comes with it's own set of risks.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Brandonm2, post: 379523, member: 2095"] I have a lot of problems with breeding by the EPDs and I agree with most of the criticism. BUT most of these guys don't present any real alternatives......... We could go back to the day of picking this bull over this other bull because some goofy show judge I have never met said this one's daddy was better at some show. Is that a better system??? Or we could go back to the day when some old dude showed us on paper where this bull traces back to "The Great" Joe Bob the IXth bull 8 different ways in the pedigree. Now I never saw the Joe Bob bull and the breeder probably hadn't either and all we really knew about how great the "Great" was was because everybody we talked to and our daddy said he was "Great" and this bull may or may not look anything like his esteemed ancestor; but he is "linebred" so that automatically makes him good.......etc, etc. Is THAT really the system we want to be using to select our seedstock????? Or we could go back to just "eye balling" and not taking anything else into consideration. I don't really know how to eyeball and tell that a bull comes from a lineage that does not marble well and it is kind of hard to identify the freak that throws the 100 pound birth weights just by eye balling him and all my eyeball tells me about a bull is that I like the way he looks today!! The other 30 half sibs back on the farm may have weaned off at 405 lbs; but the ONE in front of me LOOKS growthy. There were some really nice profiling growthy bulls that won ribbons at shows back in the 80s, whose daughters did not milk worth a diddly.....but they looked good. There CAN be information in the EPDs that I COULD actually use. I am a huge proponent of eye balling the cattle; but is that really the ONLY tool in the breeder's tool box?? Or we could just pick the bulls from the breeder who has the best "reputation". There are two kinds of reputations; the one that is built up over time by producing good cattle and excellent service and there is the kind generated by mailing out newsletter, catalogs, fliers, and magazine ads. I don't think you would lose TOO badly by just relying on the mysterious wisdom of the first type of reputation ranch. The second type of reputation ranch just means the guy has more money to spend on marketing. Either way, you are essentially just "multiplying" an elite breeder's genetics. There is nothing wrong with that; BUT as we have seen from some of the bull studs......their judgement is not always completely BRILLIANT either. There is no EASY way to breed livestock. The numbers are not a magic bullet; but jettisoning the numbers comes with it's own set of risks. [/QUOTE]
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