EPD questions

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farmguy

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Help me to understand. We visited the Line 1 Hereford facility in Montana last year. Very nice people and they are doing some great work. I received their flyer the other day on their latest bulls for sale. Now the EPD definition for YW according to Genex is "the adjusted yearling weights of a bull's progency when compared to breed average". I took the first bull on the Line 1 list for sale, 44014030. The YW EPD for him was 80. According to the EPD graph that put him in the 65% spot. His 361 day weight was 714 LBs. Now again according to his EPD graph his mature cow weight was in the lowest 5%. So line 1 Herefords are smaller in size which I fully understand. But how can one expect his offspring to be 80 lbs heavier as yearling when the cow weight is in the lightest 5% and his yearling weight is essentially 714 lbs? From my understanding I thought OK this bull should in theory add 80 lbs. to my yearling with a .31% accuracy. Where am I wrong? This is in no way a criticism of Fort Keogh but it was so blatant I feel I must be misunderstanding something. Thanks and be patient with me.
 
I'm no EPD expert so I'll be curious to hear other feedback, but my first thought is maybe mothers milking potential? If she's small but puts out a lot of milk the calf might still pack on the pounds. I assume that would impact weaning weight more than yearling weight though. Also, I am curious as to how credible the .31 accuracy is, I was under the impression less than .50 accuracy wasn't all that reliable.
 
Look at his EPD graph on the Hereford site. To me that makes it easy to see, Hereford.org That shows milk, weaning weight and other traits. Animal inquiry and then his reg #. I just picked YW for my questions. farmguy
 
You need to realize the breed averages are not zero. The hereford average yearling weight EPD for 2018 born calves is 83 lbs so the bullwith an EPD of 80 is actually 3 lbs below average not 80 lbs over.
 

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