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Cattle Boards
Breeding / Calving Issues
Are we too dependent on EPD's?
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<blockquote data-quote="wbvs58" data-source="post: 1727256" data-attributes="member: 16453"><p>I rely on our EBV's for bull selection when choosing which semen to use. It is my initial screening of the semen catalogues. I then look for photos, peoples opinions of the progeny. I go to the breeders website and look for bull sale results of progeny of the bull. If the bulls progeny are among the top sellers at the sale I feel that is a vote of confidence from the buyers as to the phenotype of his offspring. I do trust the EBV's but all the other stars have to line up as well.</p><p>I do get a bit frustrated with the EBV's of some of my cows eg, possibly my best cow has woefull numbers for growth (200, 400, 600 day weight) yet she will always wean either the heaviest or 2nd heaviest calf. I have a fellow come each year to grade all my herd, he scores them 1-7 and her progeny will always grade a 6 or 7 yet it doesn't seem to even move her milk numbers, she has had 6 calves so far. I put it down to me having a small herd (36 cows) so not a lot of cows in contempory groups to compare to. I try to run them all as one management group but once born and they inherit their EBV's from their parents (usually just the average of the two) the only movement I see in their EBV's is when the genomic results come in but usually only minor changes.</p><p></p><p>Ken</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wbvs58, post: 1727256, member: 16453"] I rely on our EBV's for bull selection when choosing which semen to use. It is my initial screening of the semen catalogues. I then look for photos, peoples opinions of the progeny. I go to the breeders website and look for bull sale results of progeny of the bull. If the bulls progeny are among the top sellers at the sale I feel that is a vote of confidence from the buyers as to the phenotype of his offspring. I do trust the EBV's but all the other stars have to line up as well. I do get a bit frustrated with the EBV's of some of my cows eg, possibly my best cow has woefull numbers for growth (200, 400, 600 day weight) yet she will always wean either the heaviest or 2nd heaviest calf. I have a fellow come each year to grade all my herd, he scores them 1-7 and her progeny will always grade a 6 or 7 yet it doesn't seem to even move her milk numbers, she has had 6 calves so far. I put it down to me having a small herd (36 cows) so not a lot of cows in contempory groups to compare to. I try to run them all as one management group but once born and they inherit their EBV's from their parents (usually just the average of the two) the only movement I see in their EBV's is when the genomic results come in but usually only minor changes. Ken [/QUOTE]
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Are we too dependent on EPD's?
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