EPD Guidance

[jwimberly]

Hi guys, I'm looking at making my first bull purchase and want to make sure its not a mistake. Right now we have a commercial herd, mostly black. We bought them as bred heifers and they started calving in April. The bull I'm looking at is a polled Hereford (not homozygous) with the following EPD's.



My goal is to raise a few heifers to build my herd and use him in the future when I buy few registered Hereford cows also. Seller will guarantee breeding soundness and seems to be giving me a very fair price from what I've seen registered Herefords go for in my area. Thoughts?

 

[Son of Butch]

The epd's look good/decent... although low accuracy, as they always are for young sires
IF you like his appearance... I see no reason to hesitate in pulling the trigger.

 

[dun]

To get a feel for his genetics aside from the EPDs I would look at his sire and dam and there sires and dams. I look for a balance of EPDs from generation to generation

 

[cow pollinater]

To get a feel for his genetics aside from the EPDs I would look at his sire and dam and there sires and dams. I look for a balance of EPDs from generation to generation

Yes... I'd add to that to mostly look for things you can't live with as they have a way of popping up where the numbers say they shouldn't.

 

[jwimberly]

Good point dun, I did check his sire NJW 73S W18 HOMETOWN 43214853 and he seemed to have very similar EPD's to me. I think I am going to pull the trigger on this one. I did notice his dam and grand dam were slightly in the negative of calving ease do you think that is something I should worry about in retaining heifers off of this bull?

 

[dun]

Good point dun, I did check his sire NJW 73S W18 HOMETOWN 43214853 and he seemed to have very similar EPD's to me. I think I am going to pull the trigger on this one. I did notice his dam and grand dam were slightly in the negative of calving ease do you think that is something I should worry about in retaining heifers off of this bull?

I might be a little leery of retaining heifers, but if you do a pelvic at 11 months or so you will be able to get a feeling for how things should work out

 

[Son of Butch]

If you click on EPD Graph: View... on the same page from the AHA you posted as a screen shot of the epd
you will get a very easy to understand graph detailing his strengths and weaknesses.