AHA elections

[HerefordSire]

I'm so confused. :?: What, exactly, is this supposed to do to help the Hereford breed? I really can't see where starting another Hereford breed association would actually help the breed/producers. Didn't the Polled and Horned groups merge together a few years ago? The Murray Grey people split up several years ago and I doubt seriously that they're a better known breed now than at that time.

Not only Herefords. All breeds. The new system would globally combine all EPDs so one could compare an Angus EPD to a Hereford EPD, for example. The new system would remove all fees for registered animal owners in return for allowing companies to place their name on each animal when being registered.

There is too much politics in the registration system. Therefore, each member gets one vote. This will encourage equality. All breeds will thrive under this sytem.

 

[Frankie]

I'm so confused. :?: What, exactly, is this supposed to do to help the Hereford breed? I really can't see where starting another Hereford breed association would actually help the breed/producers. Didn't the Polled and Horned groups merge together a few years ago? The Murray Grey people split up several years ago and I doubt seriously that they're a better known breed now than at that time.

Not only Herefords. All breeds. The new system would globally combine all EPDs so one could compare an Angus EPD to a Hereford EPD, for example. The new system would remove all fees for registered animal owners in return for allowing companies to place their name on each animal when being registered.

There is too much politics in the registration system. Therefore, each member gets one vote. This will encourage equality. All breeds will thrive under this sytem.

I see. I wasn't following closely enough, I guess. I just saw the title "AHA elections." What about breeds that don't have EPDs? Will they be allowed to join?

 

[HerefordSire]

I see. I wasn't following closely enough, I guess. I just saw the title "AHA elections." What about breeds that don't have EPDs? Will they be allowed to join?

It would be up to the members instead of the board of directors for each subcategory or the overall board or directors. Theoretically, if an animal breed didn't have EPDs, they could start at the median and move from there. Another option would be to start all breeds at the median.

 

[MO_cows]

HerefordSire, did you ever hear of the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation, or CLRC? They handle all the cattle breed registries for Canada and have done so for YEARS. If there was any value or feasibility to co-mingling the data from the different breeds, I think they would have done it by now. There is a similar situation in Australia. I have heard it called Breedplan and ABRI. If I have it right, they just do the performance end and provide data to the associations to include with the pedigrees. Yet another enterprise that is invested heavily into processing bovine performance data, yet they haven't co-mingled the breeds. There must be a reason - it's not feasible to do so.

Your train of thought on this concept does make me wonder why nobody has come up with a "calculator" program or some sort of computer widget to handle the across-breed EPD adjustment factors. So that anybody who wants to compare animals of different breeds can just plug in their breed code and EPD's to see them all adjusted and side by side; without manually doing the math and recording the sums to compare. So maybe you did have a great idea after all. Get somebody to write the software and I'll bet you could sell that. Or get Purina to sponsor it.

 

[HerefordSire]

HerefordSire, did you ever hear of the Canadian Livestock Records Corporation, or CLRC? They handle all the cattle breed registries for Canada and have done so for YEARS. If there was any value or feasibility to co-mingling the data from the different breeds, I think they would have done it by now. There is a similar situation in Australia. I have heard it called Breedplan and ABRI. If I have it right, they just do the performance end and provide data to the associations to include with the pedigrees. Yet another enterprise that is invested heavily into processing bovine performance data, yet they haven't co-mingled the breeds. There must be a reason - it's not feasible to do so.

Your train of thought on this concept does make me wonder why nobody has come up with a "calculator" program or some sort of computer widget to handle the across-breed EPD adjustment factors. So that anybody who wants to compare animals of different breeds can just plug in their breed code and EPD's to see them all adjusted and side by side; without manually doing the math and recording the sums to compare. So maybe you did have a great idea after all. Get somebody to write the software and I'll bet you could sell that. Or get Purina to sponsor it.

I can write the software. Please read the BIF document concerning EPDs. This is the way it is headed. Global EPDs.

I have not heard or read any document info regarding the BreedPlan, etc.

I am almost positive, this is what will happen.

It is very feasible and it most surely going to happen. You can count on it.

 

[Brandonm22]

The University of Guelph has been working on this for years and years. Lee Leachman uses a customized version of Guelph's cross breed EPD system to assign cross breed EPDs to their various breeds and composites.

http://cgil.uoguelph.ca/pub/

The research is there. The problem would be implementing a cross breeds EPD system. Assigning Cross Breed EPDs to cattle of all breeds and multi-breeds would be stepping on a lot of breed association toes......toes that are very politically powerful within the industry. The economics of forming ONE data collection and EPD service that governs everybody is another question entirely. Theoreticaly NCBA or BIF would govern such a system; but if farmer Bob with no registered anything is getting EPDs for his crossbred cows and using them to directly compete with AAA, NALF, and AHA, etc members some people's feelings are going to get hurt.

 

[HerefordSire]

The University of Guelph has been working on this for years and years. Lee Leachman uses a customized version of Guelph's cross breed EPD system to assign cross breed EPDs to their various breeds and composites.

http://cgil.uoguelph.ca/pub/

The research is there. The problem would be implementing a cross breeds EPD system. Assigning Cross Breed EPDs to cattle of all breeds and multi-breeds would be stepping on a lot of breed association toes......toes that are very politically powerful within the industry. The economics of forming ONE data collection and EPD service that governs everybody is another question entirely. Theoreticaly NCBA or BIF would govern such a system; but if farmer Bob with no registered anything is getting EPDs for his crossbred cows and using them to directly compete with AAA, NALF, and AHA, etc members some people's feelings are going to get hurt.

That is exactly why there needs to be a new association charging zero fees to registrants in return for commercial advertising.

The main ingredient, and I have already mentioned, the leader needs to have Steve Jobs' quality talent. Scr?w the associations and their politicians. Members will come for no fees and have one vote and no more.

 

[Brandonm22]

True crossbreed EPDs are something that scares an awful lot of people. Crunch all the data and the computer is likely to tell us that Caustic or someone like him has a Hereford/Charolais/Brahman 3 way cross cow in the top 1% of the industry for weaning weight EPD. What exactly does that really tell us??? Is that now a $100,000 donor cow (nobody has ever convinced me that any cow is worth that) or just a good commercial cow? A Charolais bull with a birth weight EPD in the lowest 5% of their breed has a higher birth weight EPD than 90% of the Angus breed. IF you own that trait leader Charolais, can you market his genetics with a Crossbreed EPD that is much higher than the average birth weight EPD in the crossbreed EPD system?

 

[HerefordSire]

True crossbreed EPDs are something that scares an awful lot of people. Crunch all the data and the computer is likely to tell us that Caustic or someone like him has a Hereford/Charolais/Brahman 3 way cross cow in the top 1% of the industry for weaning weight EPD. What exactly does that really tell us??? Is that now a $100,000 donor cow (nobody has ever convinced me that any cow is worth that) or just a good commercial cow? A Charolais bull with a birth weight EPD in the lowest 5% of their breed has a higher birth weight EPD than 90% of the Angus breed. IF you own that trait leader Charolais, can you market his genetics with a Crossbreed EPD that is much higher than the average birth weight EPD in the crossbreed EPD system?

All EPDs will be comparable but the breeds will all be seperated. It is simple math based upon performance. The hybrids should have stronger EPD numbers for most categories so this won't surprise anyone. These EPD formuli should show the superiority of the Hereford breed relative to Angus so anyone in the Angus breed should consider not joining the new association until later in years to continue to capitalize on current political marketing. This is why Herefords could take the lead and get ahead of Angus. Then Angus breeders could eventually be forced to follow.