ollie":1wjog3za said:
houstoncutter":1wjog3za said:
Well here my 2 cents as a commercial cattleman. I personally know two big time Angus and Limouisn breeders that play fast and loose with their numbers. They back of the grass and feed in the last tri-mester, so the calves will have a small birth weight. Its the last tri-mester when a calf will get his size. After their born they put em on the best they have so you get that small bw and a good ww. I say look at the sires actual birth weight as well a his parents. If the line of cattle produce small calve it will show. Most especially if the sire has been used in different herds.
Rodney
Rodney, If that were all they were doing to improve their epds in their herd I wouldn't be so hard against them. I even know of several ranches of different breeds that keep ratio individuals in their herd when they normally would have culled them. Not only does it make a farce of their epd's it hurts overall productivity of the american cow herd.In the initial stages of a bulls accuracy the epd game also descriminates against the cow herd that has less variation. Smaller breeders , closed herds, uniform bunches of cattle, these are all fair game for the larger ranches that as you said play fast and loose with their epd game.One one word Frankie (Krebs)
Krebs got caught, too. Are you ignoring that?
As la4angus said earlier, an individual's own performance is a drop in the bucket as far as his EPDs are concerned. EPDs take performance info from his sire, dam, sisters, half sisters, brothers, half brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, etc. The accuracy of EPDs is important. The Angus Assn starting holding that accuracy to .85 until data being reported was from multiple breeders, not just the owners. I generally don't use bulls until their accuracy is in the 90s. We're going to make an exception and try the ABS bull New Level in the spring. If anyone has any info him, good or bad, please let me know.
Why would you say that "Smaller breeders , closed herds, uniform bunches of cattle, these are all fair game for the larger ranches that as you said play fast and loose with their epd game."?