I am posting this on this board because it is not about any one breed. I just have herefords. I have a Fort Keogh catalog and was looking at the line 1 cattle. I am aware that line 1 cattle are noted for moderate size. I have no problem with that. I noticed one bull L1 Domino 15130 reg #43656290 had a BW of 90 lbs and a weaning weight of 385 lbs. I am assuming this is a 205 day WW, is that correct? I do not know the age of his mother, feed conditions etc. Then I went to the American Hereford site and checked his info. I do like to use the EPD graphs for me it's an easy way for me to understand an animals genetics. As I expected he is in the bottom 5% of the Herefords for WW. However when I look at his EPD for WW weight I see that he has a plus 35 lbs. This I cannot understand, how can he be at the bottom 5% but still increase calf size by 35 lbs? I see there are negative EPD values on other traits so negative numbers are possible. This is not an attack on the Herefords as I see in my Genex catalog other breeds also use a similar system. Obviously I am not understanding something. Is the +35 lbs compared to what? The AHA had a info sheet on EPDs but that did not help. Thanks and excuse my ignorance, farmguy.
EPD question
- Thread starter farmguy
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farmguy
Well-known member
So it's compared against a breed average so we could expect in theory his calves would wean 16 pounds less, is that correct? I admit I am still confused. Also where do we find the breed average for traits? thanks farmguy.dun":17g6yx07 said:
http://www.herfnet.com/online/cgi-bin/i ... 2B3C2B3C3Afarmguy":3cu8zpuh said:
farmguy
Well-known member
Thanks for the info. I guess for me I have a hard time understanding how this bull could have a positive EPD for weaning. But I do like the EPD graph and I will use that to make my bull and AI choices. Thanks for the help, farmguy.
