Angus people docility EPD question

[gertman]

I know temperament has a lot to do with how animals are handled and their environment, but do you find the docility epd's to be fairly accurate ?

 

[gizmom]

I can't really say as yet haven't been around long enough to give them a true test.

Gizmom

 

[jscunn]

Have had calves and up out of muliple high docility sires, and those cattle are pretty darn docile. Been around calves out of a bull with a really low docility epd (-9) and they were pretty flighty. I would say that in those instances the EPDs were dead on. I think the middle ground may not be right, but the top and bottom is pretty solid.

 

[elkwc]

After I attended an Angus sale in Feb I decided the docility EPD numbers weren't very accurate. Some of the supposedly most docile were the most nervous and even cleared the ring in a few instances. This observation is based on a one time experience so after I attend a few more sales and view some more maybe my opinion will change.

 

[torogmc81]

Have had calves and up out of muliple high docility sires, and those cattle are pretty darn docile. Been around calves out of a bull with a really low docility epd (-9) and they were pretty flighty. I would say that in those instances the EPDs were dead on. I think the middle ground may not be right, but the top and bottom is pretty solid.

I've been told by an ABS rep the same thing about the middle ground. And I'm pretty sure it was the same rep that told me the Doc EPD #'s are actually observed, scored, and calculated in the shoot with bulls/steers. Someone please correct if I am wrong about that

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Should be bulls and heifers. Steers are not going to reproduce.

 

[shortybreeder]

Should be bulls and heifers. Steers are not going to reproduce.

Just because they aren't going to reproduce doesn't mean they can't influence their parents' EPDs. Where else are you going to get information for the carcass EPDs? Ultrasound will tell you what they have, but unless you get someone to ultrasound a group of heifers out of your bull, the steers are your best way of gathering information on those traits. Their birth weights, weaning weights, and yearling weights are all important to further improve EPD accuracies.

 

[shortybreeder]

This year I had 2 calves out of Conneally Thunder, his DOC EPD is 26, and they are exact opposites. One calf was a heifer, she was born in the barn where we could try to work with her one-on-one and try to get her used to people at a young age... I'd say she's the craziest calf on the place, and will do anything to avoid any/all human contact. The other calf, born 2 days ago, is a bull calf and when I was in the pasture, he found me rather than me finding him... I was looking at my other calves when I heard a little moo behind me, and there he was. He came right up and let me pet him while his mom stood guard (she's also a very docile animal that always comes up to get scratched and tries giving us hugs). The dam of the first calf has always been pretty flighty, so that could be a strong influence as well. This is only 2 calves though, so probably not representative.

 

[jscunn]

remember guys the bull is only half the dna, and in the case of docility epds none of the environment.
i tend to look at the sires i was referring to in groups, on case in particular were the sire and his son were both in the top 5 sires for docility at one time. cattle out of both were extremely docile. (love to calve them hate to work them)
The lower epd sire came from bull with one of the lowest docility epds, the employees all hated working the bull himself..

 

[Son of Butch]

Yes...BUT, need to understand breed average is +11 not 0 making reading epds a bit misleading... 1st impression
+5 oh must be slight improvement...wrong +5 = bottom 25% of the breed

-6 bottom 5%
-2 bottom 10%
+1 bottom 15%
+5 bottom 25%
+11 Breed Average
+22 top 10%
+26 top 5%

Also Docility data collected is not based on How Gentle BUT on % of high strung vs % of low key

 

[Lucky_P]

jscunn hit it. The bull is only half the equation - but, depending on your operation, including selection for docility when making breeding decisions may be a good tactic.

I usually try to use bulls well above breed average for Docility - if everything else I want is there.
Used one several years back, before he had a Doc epd rating - I knew he had some 'heat' behind him, but wanted what he brought to the table.
After the cows were bred, his initial Doc came out at...-23. Yikes! But, I ended up with 3 heifers and a number of steers. No disposition issues, the cows are still here as 5-yr olds, and they are as docile as anything else in the herd; one is a total dead-head, but so is her dam.

 

[ousoonerfan22]

We bought our angus bull(17498252) when he was a year old and his docility epd was a -2 and now it's +2 but when we were looking at that group of bulls you could walk within five yards of this bull and he wouldn't pay no attention to you. This bull now is a big pet likes to be brushed and has never acted up even when giving him shots so I really question the docility epd.

 

[polledbull]

im just happy that the angus folks finally saw that they needed an Doc. epd after all these years of ridicule of other breeds over doc. issues , I raise both registered Limousin and Angus and the last several times I have been kicked , ( last week) the last time was by an Angus cow.

 

[Nesikep]

If my cattle were angus, all my replacement heifers in the last 5 years would be +26. I find it's more learned than anything else... My old cow Rosie was from a Saler, and we had LOTS of flighty cattle from him, Her mother was a very docile cow and she took after that, as have all her daughters. Her last one in fact LOVES people.. any person is a friend to her. A neighbor stopped on the road the other day and we talked, Kama came up to me, inspected the vehicle, then wanted to put her head in the drivers window to say hi. I found if you have a generally calm herd, it doesn't matter what the bull's docility EPD's are, and probably even more so if you AI your cows... I like the idea of a docility EPD, but I think an ACCURATE one will never happen!

Our Limo bull has Docility EPD's, and I read up on it on the Limo website.. it's rated 1 to 4 when they're put in a headgate at a year old.. 1 they fight like bastards in it, 2 they fight and settle down, 3 they fidget, and 4 they just stand there. I guess you have to have some way to guage it, but that method certainly isn't going to tell you how a cow that has just calved will behave.

 

[Son of Butch]

I find it's more learned than anything else...

There is a lot of truth in that. The way your herd reacts to your presence sets the tone of the herd mentality and the calves pick up on how they should react from their elders.

 

[cbcr]

Docility, as some have said has a lot to do with how the animals are handled. If a person is around their cows every day, the for the most part that herd would be calmer that the guy who's cows see a human maybe once a month or less.

Also, being around and doing AI work for others, I have seen some cattle that are not very docile and gentle. But then when these seedstock producers have a sale, and you look at the sale catalog the cattle were all reported to the association as very docile.

So, while the Docility EPD may be somewhat interesting, how the animal acts and interacts with humans is the most and more important.

 

[Don McCallum]

I have a son of 004, and I have read that 004 wasn't docile. I don't know if I have had a more docile bull. Years ago I had an excellent beefmaster bull,
and he came out of a herd where his siblings were crazy. He was very docile when I bought him and never changed. A friend bought another one at the same
time. He stayed crazy and was dangerous to be around. He had to sell that bull.

 

[djinwa]

There seems to be a misunderstanding of genetics and probability.

Assuming the animals are tested and reported accurately, a high EPD predicts that it is more likely that the offspring will be docile.

This does not mean that every offspring will be docile. So reporting that you got a crazy calf from a docile bull or herd does not mean breeding for docility is worthless.

Tall parents may occasionally throw a short kid, but they are still more likely to have tall kids.

So, on average, a high EPD bull should improve the average docility of a herd, even though there may be an occasional crazy.

If you think it is all about handling, and not genetics, keep breeding crazies and hope enough hugs will compensate.

Reminds me of my sister who recently had a dog that was crazy and after biting 4 different people, she was blaming it all on their inability to handle the dog properly. I argued that you shouldn't have to be so careful.

Likewise with cattle, I have grown weary of having to try and reform the crazies, when the docile ones don't need such special treatment.

Anyway, docility is quite heritable.

http://www.angus.org/nce/documents/byth ... cility.pdf

Heritability estimates for temperament in beef and dairy cattle tend to be moderate to high, indicating that selection for improved temperament would be effective. Heritability estimates can range from 0 to 1. As a comparison with other traits, reproductive traits tend to be lowly heritable and carcass traits are more highly heritable.
University of Missouri scientist Bob Weaber analyzed the yearling cattle temperament scores to estimate temperament heritability, which ranged from 0.36 to 0.45. Estimates of maternal heritability were near 0. The variance components generated from this research were used in a genetic evaluation for the trait, representing a heritability equal to 0.37. Similar estimates have been reported for heritability of docility in the Limousin breed.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

There seems to be a misunderstanding of genetics and probability.

Assuming the animals are tested and reported accurately, a high EPD predicts that it is more likely that the offspring will be docile.

This does not mean that every offspring will be docile. So reporting that you got a crazy calf from a docile bull or herd does not mean breeding for docility is worthless.

Tall parents may occasionally throw a short kid, but they are still more likely to have tall kids.

So, on average, a high EPD bull should improve the average docility of a herd, even though there may be an occasional crazy.

If you think it is all about handling, and not genetics, keep breeding crazies and hope enough hugs will compensate.

Reminds me of my sister who recently had a dog that was crazy and after biting 4 different people, she was blaming it all on their inability to handle the dog properly. I argued that you shouldn't have to be so careful.

Likewise with cattle, I have grown weary of having to try and reform the crazies, when the docile ones don't need such special treatment.

Anyway, docility is quite heritable.

http://www.angus.org/nce/documents/byth ... cility.pdf

Heritability estimates for temperament in beef and dairy cattle tend to be moderate to high, indicating that selection for improved temperament would be effective. Heritability estimates can range from 0 to 1. As a comparison with other traits, reproductive traits tend to be lowly heritable and carcass traits are more highly heritable.
University of Missouri scientist Bob Weaber analyzed the yearling cattle temperament scores to estimate temperament heritability, which ranged from 0.36 to 0.45. Estimates of maternal heritability were near 0. The variance components generated from this research were used in a genetic evaluation for the trait, representing a heritability equal to 0.37. Similar estimates have been reported for heritability of docility in the Limousin breed.

I completely agree!! When we report docility in our calves at weaning, we are reporting a number based on our handling and raising of those calves. My "3" may not be the same as my neighbors "3". The association takes that number and has a formula that converts it to the epd.
We have a cow we bought that has an edge to her (her name is Ms. P- which stands for psycho or princess depending on her mood that day), and her fall heifer calf this year has that same edge to her, even though she is sired by one of the top EPD bulls for docility. Is it the bulls fault she has an edge to her? No, it comes from her dam.
I have seen outliers on both sides of the docility epd, that does not make it wrong or inaccurate. Think of the bell curve, not everyone falls in the center of the bell curve, there will always be some on either extreme side. But as a whole, the average will fit there.

 

[shortybreeder]

There seems to be a misunderstanding of genetics and probability.

Assuming the animals are tested and reported accurately, a high EPD predicts that it is more likely that the offspring will be docile.

This does not mean that every offspring will be docile. So reporting that you got a crazy calf from a docile bull or herd does not mean breeding for docility is worthless.

Tall parents may occasionally throw a short kid, but they are still more likely to have tall kids.

So, on average, a high EPD bull should improve the average docility of a herd, even though there may be an occasional crazy.

If you think it is all about handling, and not genetics, keep breeding crazies and hope enough hugs will compensate.

Reminds me of my sister who recently had a dog that was crazy and after biting 4 different people, she was blaming it all on their inability to handle the dog properly. I argued that you shouldn't have to be so careful.

Likewise with cattle, I have grown weary of having to try and reform the crazies, when the docile ones don't need such special treatment.

Anyway, docility is quite heritable.

http://www.angus.org/nce/documents/byth ... cility.pdf

Heritability estimates for temperament in beef and dairy cattle tend to be moderate to high, indicating that selection for improved temperament would be effective. Heritability estimates can range from 0 to 1. As a comparison with other traits, reproductive traits tend to be lowly heritable and carcass traits are more highly heritable.
University of Missouri scientist Bob Weaber analyzed the yearling cattle temperament scores to estimate temperament heritability, which ranged from 0.36 to 0.45. Estimates of maternal heritability were near 0. The variance components generated from this research were used in a genetic evaluation for the trait, representing a heritability equal to 0.37. Similar estimates have been reported for heritability of docility in the Limousin breed.

I completely agree!! When we report docility in our calves at weaning, we are reporting a number based on our handling and raising of those calves. My "3" may not be the same as my neighbors "3". The association takes that number and has a formula that converts it to the epd.
We have a cow we bought that has an edge to her (her name is Ms. P- which stands for psycho or princess depending on her mood that day), and her fall heifer calf this year has that same edge to her, even though she is sired by one of the top EPD bulls for docility. Is it the bulls fault she has an edge to her? No, it comes from her dam.
I have seen outliers on both sides of the docility epd, that does not make it wrong or inaccurate. Think of the bell curve, not everyone falls in the center of the bell curve, there will always be some on either extreme side. But as a whole, the average will fit there.

I agree as well, and that bell curve statement brought back a few memories of stats class... Haha and it made me think of the Cauchy Random Variable, which is the outlier to the law of large numbers. Which is maybe relevant to this? Idk, my brain isn't quite functioning right--a little bit sleep deprived. sorry for rambling :dunce: