data mining, or what would you like to find out...

[Chris H]

For those who don't know what 'data mining' is, here's a nice explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining

I assume most breed registries enable you to look up pedigrees of any registered animal. I'm familiar with the Hereford capabilities. You can find trait leaders of any kind, using your minimum or maximum limits. You can trace pedigrees easily back into the 1960's. You can find all immediate offspring of a bull or cow.
What else do you think would be valuable? I'd like to see numbers of retained females, although that's less reliable if the female is sold to someone who doesn't report. How about a quick way to find the female with the most offspring? Or the female with the most natural calves? The Hereford Ass'n doesn't have a longevity EPD; 'DOD' does give some distinction to outstanding females but sometimes a quality female fails to earn DOD due to being flushed and fails to calve in the interval required(or some other valid reason).
What else can we look for in the registries to help bring quality animals to the surface?

 

[1848]

For those who don't know what 'data mining' is, here's a nice explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining

I assume most breed registries enable you to look up pedigrees of any registered animal. I'm familiar with the Hereford capabilities. You can find trait leaders of any kind, using your minimum or maximum limits. You can trace pedigrees easily back into the 1960's. You can find all immediate offspring of a bull or cow.
What else do you think would be valuable? I'd like to see numbers of retained females, although that's less reliable if the female is sold to someone who doesn't report. How about a quick way to find the female with the most offspring? Or the female with the most natural calves? The Hereford Ass'n doesn't have a longevity EPD; 'DOD' does give some distinction to outstanding females but sometimes a quality female fails to earn DOD due to being flushed and fails to calve in the interval required(or some other valid reason).
What else can we look for in the registries to help bring quality animals to the surface?

I don't think the number of retained females would be accurate based on how cattle are sold without papers, or taken out of production and placed commercially, but still show active with the original owner. The best way to follow this is a phone call or check daughters for production and see who is registerring those calves.

I wouldn't mind a longevity EPD, it won't be a number that can be as easily manipulated.... ;-), unless you keep a donor for 12 years that only gives a natural calf every other year... :shock: I think breeders should make a choice,...sacrifice longevity or flush an unproven female, but not benefit from both...this would skew the numbers and not be fair to animals who haven given a calf a year....flushed or not. Longivity is not just about age....it's about ability to produce over a period of years (which is an indication of their fleshing ability, udder, legs, genetic problems, etc.) It's harder on animal that is challeged year after year instead of being flushed at 2 because they couldn't get her rebred... ;-) then let her maintain her condition and teeth by coddling her in between, just because she is a flush cow. Udder score and perhaps condition should also have some inclusion into a longevity EPD, as well as a cull disposition (ie Cancer). Don't think you could include leg/foot issues though.

I would like to see actual "birth weights" shown too.

 

[Tom Underwood]

I’d almost have to borrow Doc’s “Don’t get me started. . . “ on this one.

There are many important pieces of data that would be of tremendous use to breeders if the AHA would open up their database.

1. I’d like to be able to query a list of all active descendants of a given sire or dam (along with % blood). Even better, in some cases, I’d like to be able to query a list of all active descendants that do not trace to a particular sire.
2. I’d like to know inbreeding coefficients.
3. I’d like to know the standard deviation of reported weaning weights among contemporary groups for given sires.
4. I’d like life dam summaries to be available for all dams, not just my own.
5. How about being able to query based upon the number of animals registered for a given sire in a given year? In other words, beginning with the sire with the most registrations last year, show me the list of sires with offspring in descending order.
6. I’d like to be able to query based upon the change in EPD values (over the number of seasons that I could select) rather than just the EPD itself.
7. The current database is biased towards performance breeders. There are many more pedigree queries that I’d like to perform regarding cattle that are not part of the TPR program.
8. I’d like to know the change in EPD’s over the last 4 years for all transferred females that continued to have data reported by the new owners. I’d compare this data to the change in EPD’s of all non-transferred females.

I sincerely believe that EPD’s will continue to play a diminishing role in the Hereford industry in the next decade. One decade ago, there was an enormous focus among Hereford breeders for M&G or WW & YW. Then, IMF and REA became more of a focus. Now, some are pay attention to $CHB.

I continue to track EPD’s, and I continue to measure performance. Performance plays a role in my breeding decisions, but EPD’s play no role.

 

[1848]

1. I’d like to be able to query a list of all active descendants of a given sire or dam (along with % blood). Even better, in some cases, I’d like to be able to query a list of all active descendants that do not trace to a particular sire.
2. I’d like to know inbreeding coefficients.
3. I’d like to know the standard deviation of reported weaning weights among contemporary groups for given sires.
4. I’d like life dam summaries to be available for all dams, not just my own.
5. How about being able to query based upon the number of animals registered for a given sire in a given year? In other words, beginning with the sire with the most registrations last year, show me the list of sires with offspring in descending order.
6. I’d like to be able to query based upon the change in EPD values (over the number of seasons that I could select) rather than just the EPD itself.
7. The current database is biased towards performance breeders. There are many more pedigree queries that I’d like to perform regarding cattle that are not part of the TPR program.
8. I’d like to know the change in EPD’s over the last 4 years for all transferred females that continued to have data reported by the new owners. I’d compare this data to the change in EPD’s of all non-transferred females.

I sincerely believe that EPD’s will continue to play a diminishing role in the Hereford industry in the next decade. One decade ago, there was an enormous focus among Hereford breeders for M&G or WW & YW. Then, IMF and REA became more of a focus. Now, some are pay attention to $CHB.

I continue to track EPD’s, and I continue to measure performance. Performance plays a role in my breeding decisions, but EPD’s play no role.

Well Tom, you brought allot of good points in here. I know some of the information you track can be aquired from the current breed databases, it is just more tedious getting to it. Some of the information you want to track can also be done through other software program like cattlemaster. You can do what I do and print out those EPD's with every new evaluation so you can see the deviation and trend and/or create your own spreadsheet and database. The old AHA database had a search engine that allowed for a variety of queries...some simular to what you state. I kinda miss that one once in a while. I think the credibility of EPD's will always be an issue because of the variables in data reporting. Keeping animals longer and reporting data on them, using EPD's with a high percentage of accuracy, and consentrating on more of a line based program can help solve some of the shortcomings with EPD's.

 

[El_Putzo]

I'd like to see a section added in the Performance Pedigree denoting all owners, both present and past. This I think would be of great help when researching potential cattle you'd like to buy so you could see if the animal had been tossed around like a bad penny.

 

[novatech]

For those who don't know what 'data mining' is, here's a nice explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining

I assume most breed registries enable you to look up pedigrees of any registered animal. I'm familiar with the Hereford capabilities. You can find trait leaders of any kind, using your minimum or maximum limits. You can trace pedigrees easily back into the 1960's. You can find all immediate offspring of a bull or cow.
What else do you think would be valuable? I'd like to see numbers of retained females, although that's less reliable if the female is sold to someone who doesn't report. How about a quick way to find the female with the most offspring? Or the female with the most natural calves? The Hereford Ass'n doesn't have a longevity EPD; 'DOD' does give some distinction to outstanding females but sometimes a quality female fails to earn DOD due to being flushed and fails to calve in the interval required(or some other valid reason).
What else can we look for in the registries to help bring quality animals to the surface?

The biggest problem I have with choosing semen (a bull) is finding out what type of udder and tit size the cows produced would have. I always try and find some older cows from the bull. That also can tell me if I'm going to get easy keepers or hard keepers think it would be impossible to have EPD's for all the information I would like to have.