EPD Help

[jehosofat]

Would one of you EPD experts help me decipher this mess, and highlight what I need to know.

 

[Bright Raven]

It is showing EPDs for Sire. The first number is the value of the trait for example CED is 17. Numbers higher that 10 are in general calving ease. The ACC is accuracy - 86 % accuracy for this sire.

BW is birth weight - he removes 3.8 pounds from the average for the breed with a 92 acc.

WW is weaning weight. He is in the 42 percentile for his breed. Not bad.

YW IS yearly weaning weight. He is in the 86 percentile. That is not good. The lower the percentile the better.

Then you have Milk - 20 is about mid-range.

CEM is maternal calving ease.

Sorry. Having a hard time keeping up. It is sideways.

To me, those are the EPDs I look at:
CED
BW
WW
YW
CEM
Milk

 

[sim.-ang.king]

You're holding it sideways.

 

[Bright Raven]

You're holding it sideways.

I tried to turn it. My phone flips it around. Lol

 

[jehosofat]

 

[redcowsrule33]

What are your goals? If I am keeping heifers back I would want his ME to be lower and his maternals (HPG, CEM, STAY) to be be higher. If you are looking to improve marbling, good choice.

 

[TCRanch]

Keep in mind, EPD's are just a suggestion/guide, absolutely no guarantee. I just had a 17.5 month old heifer have a 95 lb bull calf (clearly by accident) bred by a bull that typically - and according to his EPD's - throws an average 75 lbs.

 

[wbvs58]

Ron, YW I thought was just its yearling weight, nothing to do with "yearly weaning weight". Probably an error with interpreting it sideways, you might want to comment/correct it.

Ken

 

[Bright Raven]

Ron, YW I thought was just its yearling weight, nothing to do with "yearly weaning weight". Probably an error with interpreting it sideways, you might want to comment/correct it.

Ken

Yes. Need to correct that. It is yearling weight.

Thanks Ken.

 

[Son of Butch]

Would one of you EPD experts help me decipher this mess, and highlight what I need to know.

The Very First thing you need to know is which BREED your EPD is for.
In this case it's Red Angus (and no Angus & Red Angus EPDs are not the same)
Then to understand what it means you need to know breed average for Red Angus for each trait and variation from average.

Red Angus Breed Averages
ced 6 .....with ce 10 = top 25% and ce 2 = bottom 25%
bw -2.0 ... with bw -3.8 top 25% and bw -0.2 bottom 25%
ww 57 .... ww 67 = top 25% and ww 47 = bottom 25%
yw 90..... yw 106 top 25% and yw 74 bottom 25%
milk 19 .... milk 24 top 25% and milk 14 bottom 25%

Herd Builder $107 ..... 138 top 25% and 75 bottom 25%
Grid Master = terminal index
GM 50 average with 53 top 25% and 47 bottom 25%

The information you provided says the Sire of this calf is:
ce 17 extreme calving ease (top 2%)
bw -3.8 lbs top 25%
ww 45 bottom 20%
yw 86 (6% below breed average)
milk 20 top 45% (5% above breed average)
HerdBuilder $108 breed average
Gridmaster 56 top 5%

p.s.
This is only 1/2 the story as the epds provided only applies to this individuals Sire.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

SOB - great job explaining!!