EPD's What Do They Mean?

[ollie']

Mike it isn't the environmental factor I am curious about , it's the phenotypical factor . EPD's only give you a number based on the average data reported. Phenotype gives you a more specific answer to the question of how a bull will work. I would value an epd from a fairly closed herd of cattle with the phenotype of cattle I use from an environment I am in. I place no value on epd's gathered from various management styles and various phenotypes from across the nation. All it tells is how the bull will preform on average to the nations management, the nations environment, and the nations cowherd. What has that really got to do with me and mine? I am interested to hear what Mr. Wiliams says though. I doubt he will grasp the concept however.

 

[MikeC]

Mike it isn't the environmental factor I am curious about , it's the phenotypical factor . EPD's only give you a number based on the average data reported. Phenotype gives you a more specific answer to the question of how a bull will work. I would value an epd from a fairly closed herd of cattle with the phenotype of cattle I use from an environment I am in. I place no value on epd's gathered from various management styles and various phenotypes from across the nation. All it tells is how the bull will preform on average to the nations management, the nations environment, and the nations cowherd. What has that really got to do with me and mine? I am interested to hear what Mr. Wiliams says though. I doubt he will grasp the concept however.

The phenotypical factor could come into play when we turn in "Height in inches" with yearling data. As far as I know, there is no way to measure length and width of an animal.

Heard some guys saying we need to start taking "Heart Girth" measurements. :?:

 

[ollie']

Mike it isn't the environmental factor I am curious about , it's the phenotypical factor . EPD's only give you a number based on the average data reported. Phenotype gives you a more specific answer to the question of how a bull will work. I would value an epd from a fairly closed herd of cattle with the phenotype of cattle I use from an environment I am in. I place no value on epd's gathered from various management styles and various phenotypes from across the nation. All it tells is how the bull will preform on average to the nations management, the nations environment, and the nations cowherd. What has that really got to do with me and mine? I am interested to hear what Mr. Wiliams says though. I doubt he will grasp the concept however.

The phenotypical factor could come into play when we turn in "Height in inches" with yearling data. As far as I know, there is no way to measure length and width of an animal.

Heard some guys saying we need to start taking "Heart Girth" measurements. :?:

A good cowman can measure them driving down the road. I would say you could spot a set of deep long efficient looking cows from half a mile a way.

 

[AAOK]

IMHO: EPDs are just a Breeders best lies. Nobody ever lists a 100lb. calf, and holstiens are raising the calves of many of the largest registered breeders of all breeds. I can't find reason to confirm that EPDs reflect any genetic merit. :roll:

 

[Saltydawg]

Missed this thread till now hehe.

I'm afraid my schooling in mathematics isn't much use here because I don't have all the input information they use to calculate epd's.
These calculations and ammount of variables are far to large to attempt to work out without the aid of computers or a whole lot of paper and time lol.
The database and computers they are using to crunch these numbers has got to be HUGE.

From what I know of EPD's they are only guides....tools as has been pointed out.

BW epd is not going to tell you how much the calf will weigh when its born.
What it does is allow you to compare bull a with bull b and see which one is more likely to produce a heavier calf if bred to comparable cows/heifers.

If you were to take every calf ever born that was registered to a particular breed and average their weights you would come up with a mean value. This is known as value 0 for BW epd.
Ok so now we have a bull we want to figure BW epd for.

We need to look at all the calves sired by him, all the calves sired by his parents, grandparents, great grandparents....as far back as we can trace within his bloodline. Then we look at all the calves sired by his siblings...and so on and so forth....I'm not sure where they draw the line but I do know it is quite extensive.
Some of these figures will have more direct relevance on his performance than others so they assign weighted values to some of these....a curve.
Then we average these out and come up with a mean value for all his calves.
If it is higher than the mean for the breed then he recieves a positive score, and a negative if its lower than mean for the breed.

So now we know how this bull is expected to perform with regards to the breed average....its not a guarantee.
Most associations are going to assume that the animals are going to get all the feed they need to reach their potential.
If you don't feed your animals well or feed them too much then you can expect to see variation.
Due to the size of the sample used to compute most epd's, environment and phenotype is not really an issue. These differences get lost in the averages...they are not significant variables.

A bw 2.0 Bull can be expected to perform the same in Canada as it does in Texas when bred to a comparable cow.

The reason they won't give an outright breed expected weight is because it constantly changes everytime they run the figures through the computer and get new data.
When this mean value changes so do all the other values for every animal in the program.
Standard deviation will also change as these mean values are adjusted.
They can give you exact values for the last time they ran the numbers but its likely to change the next time around.

Thats the "problem" with averages.....change any value at all and every other value is effected as well.

I know there's a lot of oldtimers on here a lot more experienced than me but IMO the epd's are good guidelines.
They have sufficient information to make pretty accurate statistical analysis.

I think of EPD's like the weatherman on TV.

The weatherman is usually pretty good at telling you whats going to happen...... but sometimes he just plain aint right lol.

I guess thats Mother Nature getting her kicks.

 

[Brandonm2]

Do any epd supporters believe phenotype of the actual animal play a roll in the animals actual preformance.

Yes, obviously if a bull has the phenotype to perform well on the EPD for a given trait that should usually reflect in his calves performances. Of course we are talking about high accuracy EPDs here based on progeny performance. There is nobody out there looking at yearling bulls to adjust their EPDs up or down based on phenotype. That young bull's EPDs are based on the average performance of his pedigree and IF he is different phenotypically (for better or for worse) from his Sire and Maternal Grand Sire it is NOT factored in to the equation yet, why young bulls typically have accuracy below 25%.

One word of caution for really LOW input ranchers. I don't think MOST operations which are reporting birth wts, weaning wts, scrotal circumferences, Calving ease scores, yearling wts, yearling hip heights, mature cow weights, yearling ultrasound data, etc are typically low input producers. IF you own 20,000 acres of west Texas scrub in which 150 x-bred commercial cows wander around largely unattended until fall roundup, I am not real convinced that selecting bulls with the highest growth EPDs is going to serve your interests real well, particularly if you are planning on keeping the heifers. There you may need a moderate framed, grass raised, deep ribbed, big gutted, but not too long bull with exceptional feet and legs and finding that phenotype bull could mean accepting less than stellar EPDs in several categories.

 

[Saltydawg]

After sleeping on this I have a few more thoughts.

EPD's have to be looked at closely when selecting a bull to use in your breeding program cause you don't always want the "biggest and best" of each category.

EPD's can be used to direct your herd in a certain direction over the years.
They are not nearly as useful when trying to get numbers or performance for a single calf in a typical operation.
The bull is only 50% of the genetic potential of your animals so you have to match the bull with your cow herd and your feeding program.
If you put a bull on a poor cow it doesn't matter what his epd's are...that animal is not gonna reach those numbers.
If you put him on a good cow then its likely he will exceed his own epd's.
Some cows produce bigger calves than normal so if you put a Bull with a high BW epd on it you are likely to get a monster of a calf.

Lets say your herd has a bunch of mommas who milk pretty well.
Do you really want to use that bull with those high WW and YW weights if he also has a significantly higher milking epd?
Adding milking ability to cows can drag your cows down over a few years time.
They may not maintain enough condition to breed back reliably because of the added milking ability.
Or if you do give enough feed to maintain their condition you just increased your cost which could offset all the gains you made in WW and YW.

On the otherhand if you don't think the calves are reaching their potential at weaning it might be very beneficial to increase the milking potential of your cows.
Your calves would weigh more at weaning and as long as you don't add enough milking ability to run your cows down you'll probably come out with positive results.

My herd has different goals than a lot of other peoples.....so odds are pretty good that the bull and epd's best suited to my operation are not what the other guy needs.

Before you can make a good judgement on what EPD's you need you have to have a good understanding of where your herd is at and where you want it to go.
3000+lb animals is probably not good for most of us but thats what would happen if we all chose our bulls based on max ww and yw.


BTW I am certainly not an expert on EPD's or cattleranching. I put my ideas and thoughts out there to be looked by others because they often point out flaws in my "masterplan" :lol: . It helps me learn.

 

[Saltydawg]

Do any epd supporters believe phenotype of the actual animal play a roll in the animals actual preformance.

Yes, obviously if a bull has the phenotype to perform well on the EPD for a given trait that should usually reflect in his calves performances. Of course we are talking about high accuracy EPDs here based on progeny performance. There is nobody out there looking at yearling bulls to adjust their EPDs up or down based on phenotype. That young bull's EPDs are based on the average performance of his pedigree and IF he is different phenotypically (for better or for worse) from his Sire and Maternal Grand Sire it is NOT factored in to the equation yet, why young bulls typically have accuracy below 25%.

One word of caution for really LOW input ranchers. I don't think MOST operations which are reporting birth wts, weaning wts, scrotal circumferences, Calving ease scores, yearling wts, yearling hip heights, mature cow weights, yearling ultrasound data, etc are typically low input producers. IF you own 20,000 acres of west Texas scrub in which 150 x-bred commercial cows wander around largely unattended until fall roundup, I am not real convinced that selecting bulls with the highest growth EPDs is going to serve your interests real well, particularly if you are planning on keeping the heifers. There you may need a moderate framed, grass raised, deep ribbed, big gutted, but not too long bull with exceptional feet and legs and finding that phenotype bull could mean accepting less than stellar EPDs in several categories.

You are correct that phenotype within the breed is not considered in the epd's.
The reason they don't is because epd's are figured on breed averages over many generations.

Lets say you were only collecting data for the animals in your county.
You could break it down so far as to determine what type of grass and how much each animal was eating. What type of dirt they were standing in, how much time in a barn they spent, how often the owner gave them range cubes etc etc etc.
Of course once you put all this info in the database you would come up with an average. This is the epd.
Of course you could argue that ranch A performed better than ranch B because of the phenotype but you wouldn't be able to make any predictions on the animal if you were to move him anywhere else.
Your data pool is so small and narrow that it essentially becomes useless as a tool for anyone other than the farmer on that ranch.

If you were to look at ALL the animals in the breed from ALL climates/environments and average them out then you could make a general prediction on bull performance.
It is not perfect but averages never are.

EPD's are intended largely as a breed and herd management tool.
They cannot scale them to cater to each individual ranch and farm....thats OUR job .

 

[Brandonm2]

EPD's are intended largely as a breed and herd management tool.
They cannot scale them to cater to each individual ranch and farm....thats OUR job .

No disagreement with that here.

 

[animaldoc]

Anyone questioning the value of EPD's only needs to look at what Gardiner Angus Ranch has accomplished with them. I would like to sell a bull for $255,000.00. As far as predictability and breeding true, the more inbred the bull, the more he will breed true to his EPD values. If you have two bulls with identical EPD's, one being highly inbred and the other being an outcross within the breed in question, the inbred bull will give higher accuracy on his EPD's.

 

[ollie']

[

If the numbers aren't accurate for each individual ranch then which ranches are they good for.....ya'lls logic is not the best.

 

[ollie']

Anyone questioning the value of EPD's only needs to look at what Gardiner Angus Ranch has accomplished with them. I would like to sell a bull for $255,000.00. As far as predictability and breeding true, the more inbred the bull, the more he will breed true to his EPD values. If you have two bulls with identical EPD's, one being highly inbred and the other being an outcross within the breed in question, the inbred bull will give higher accuracy on his EPD's.

Your statement tries to convey that epd's are the reason a bull has a 255,000 value...that is silly. Lots of good angus breeders don't think Gardiner do a very good job raising cattle. Some won't even use their sires. Some I am sure use their sires because they like the cattle . Some buy bulls there because of marketing . Some convience . Some for the prestige. Why don't any of you people argue the value of epd's in a personal testimoney....tell how your stock have got better. Tell me how your inputs have went down and you product has increased in weight or value...

 

[Frankie]

All it tells is how the bull will preform on average to the nations management, the nations environment, and the nations cowherd.

EPDs don't tell you how a bull will perform EVER. They allow you to compare bulls. They tell you that you can expect the calves sired by a bull with a BW EPD of 5 to weigh 5 more pounds at birth than if you bred those same cows, same conditions, to a bull with a BW EPD of 0. EPDs tell you nothing about a bull's performance.

 

[Frankie]

Anyone questioning the value of EPD's only needs to look at what Gardiner Angus Ranch has accomplished with them. I would like to sell a bull for $255,000.00. As far as predictability and breeding true, the more inbred the bull, the more he will breed true to his EPD values. If you have two bulls with identical EPD's, one being highly inbred and the other being an outcross within the breed in question, the inbred bull will give higher accuracy on his EPD's.

Your statement tries to convey that epd's are the reason a bull has a 255,000 value...that is silly. Lots of good angus breeders don't think Gardiner do a very good job raising cattle. Some won't even use their sires. Some I am sure use their sires because they like the cattle . Some buy bulls there because of marketing . Some convience . Some for the prestige. Why don't any of you people argue the value of epd's in a personal testimoney....tell how your stock have got better. Tell me how your inputs have went down and you product has increased in weight or value...

There's no EPD for inputs. Just recently the Angus Assn introduced the $E figure, but it's too early to see what effect it's going to have on the industry/breed.

If you ever heard Henry Gardiner talk, you've heard personal testimoney about increasing WW, YW, and value by using EPDs. He was at Deer Creek Ranch one year and had a handfull of index cards. Before computers, they kept information on every cow on the place on those cards. Breeding dates, WW weights, etc. They went around the country buying the top bulls at the major state fairs because that was the best way to judge cattle at that time. Some bulls improved their herds, some bulls didn't. Their WW and YW were pretty stable. When EPDs came available and they started using them, their WW and YWs have gone up, up, up. The value of their cattle has certainly gone up.

I'll add my personal story of how EPDs has helped us:

EPDs were a relatively new thing and we had to do some looking to find a bull with EPDs to use on our first heifers. Didn't pull a single calf, though one tigerstriped gal didn't really want hers, but that didn't have anything to do with the bull. When we got into registered Angus, we tried to get in cheap and bought some cows without EPDs. (For those considering that, in my experience, you're much better off to buy fewer good cows than more medicore or sorry cows.) As the EPDs on our cattle got better and the industry learned about EPDs, the value of our cattle went up. Most of the bulls we're sending to test are doing better than the first bulls we sent and bringing in more money. We used to be thrilled to get a 1200 YW on test and today we're unhappy with anything less and, yes, we do have them sometimes.

 

[Scotty]

Anyone questioning the value of EPD's only needs to look at what Gardiner Angus Ranch has accomplished with them. I would like to sell a bull for $255,000.00. As far as predictability and breeding true, the more inbred the bull, the more he will breed true to his EPD values. If you have two bulls with identical EPD's, one being highly inbred and the other being an outcross within the breed in question, the inbred bull will give higher accuracy on his EPD's.

Your statement tries to convey that epd's are the reason a bull has a 255,000 value...that is silly. Lots of good angus breeders don't think Gardiner do a very good job raising cattle. Some won't even use their sires. Some I am sure use their sires because they like the cattle . Some buy bulls there because of marketing . Some convience . Some for the prestige. Why don't any of you people argue the value of epd's in a personal testimoney....tell how your stock have got better. Tell me how your inputs have went down and you product has increased in weight or value...

If you ever heard Henry Gardiner talk, you've heard personal testimoney about increasing WW, YW, and value by using EPDs. He was at Deer Creek Ranch one year and had a handfull of index cards. Before computers, they kept information on every cow on the place on those cards. Breeding dates, WW weights, etc. They went around the country buying the top bulls at the major state fairs because that was the best way to judge cattle at that time. Some bulls improved their herds, some bulls didn't. Their WW and YW were pretty stable. When EPDs came available and they started using them, their WW and YWs have gone up, up, up. The value of their cattle has certainly gone up.

His son Mark is carrying on in the same tradition. Saw him at Dreamcatcher Ranch.


Scotty

 

[Frankie]

How'd that sale go?

 

[Scotty]

Anyone questioning the value of EPD's only needs to look at what Gardiner Angus Ranch has accomplished with them. I would like to sell a bull for $255,000.00. As far as predictability and breeding true, the more inbred the bull, the more he will breed true to his EPD values. If you have two bulls with identical EPD's, one being highly inbred and the other being an outcross within the breed in question, the inbred bull will give higher accuracy on his EPD's.

Your statement tries to convey that epd's are the reason a bull has a 255,000 value...that is silly. Lots of good angus breeders don't think Gardiner do a very good job raising cattle. Some won't even use their sires. Some I am sure use their sires because they like the cattle . Some buy bulls there because of marketing . Some convience . Some for the prestige. Why don't any of you people argue the value of epd's in a personal testimoney....tell how your stock have got better. Tell me how your inputs have went down and you product has increased in weight or value...

OK. I sold a bull Thursday for $1250. He is a lower BW, WW and YW are at the breed average. What sold the bull, as the buyer told me, was the $E. He had a 15.95 value. The man said he wanted one that would hold together. I have been using the same type bulls when I was nothing but commercial. Keeping the heifers for cows. Having the more efficient cattle has lowered my total $ greatly. My stock are better becasue they don't need me to pamper them. They make their own living. One EPD that I am greatly concerned with. My weights are about the same. Sell my calves at 6-8 months of age. usually around 550 to 750 lbs. NO CREEP. Alot depends on the year. We are and have been in a drought.


Scotty

 

[cedar]

until a breed association requires total herd reporting, epd's for that breed will only be good for toilet paper.
Jeff at Cedarbrook

 

[Frankie]

until a breed association requires total herd reporting, epd's for that breed will only be good for toilet paper.
Jeff at Cedarbrook

Tell me, Jeff, in that total herd reporting program what happens if you don't report a calf on a cow one year?

 

[Brandonm2]

EPD's are intended largely as a breed and herd management tool.
They cannot scale them to cater to each individual ranch and farm....thats OUR job .

No disagreement with that here.

If the numbers aren't accurate for each individual ranch then which ranches are they good for.....ya'lls logic is not the best.

Nobody is saying that the EPDs aren't accurate. But to properly use them you have to know YOUR herd, your environment, how much grain you are willing to throw at your cows, and what your goals are. I think too many people are looking at the numbers as something like school grades top 5% of the breed for a trait is an A; top 15% is a B; top 25% is a C top 35% in the breed is a D; and anything worse than that is dog food. That COULD be entirely true for a bull breeder in Iowa with 48,000 bushels of corn in his bins which isn't worth his cash costs of growing it right now and who knows his customers like the biggest growth numbers and the highest weaning and yearling weights they have ever seen; but for many of us those numbers are JUST tools to measure a bull's expected competence in our environment.

Obviously, I don't want low $EN, high frame score mama cows here grazing fescue and sericea lespedeza in north Alabama and my market (historically!) doesn't really pay me for anything above 650 pounds so 900 pound weaning weights are not a goal I have for commercial cows here and I don't have the bins, grinders, mixers, etc to mill feed and I certainly don't want to buy it from the Coop at $5.85 a bag so the less supplement I can feed and still be productive the better. Top 60% of the Hereford or Angus breed for weaning wt on a decent set of x-bred cows will easily give me that 580 to 650 pound calf I want so I really question the need for a bigger number here, especially if I have increased feeding costs, lower carrying capacity, or lower body condition scores on that bull's daughters. Dittoe on birth weight. IF your heifers are having no problem having calves from a Herf with a +2 Birth wt; why drop down to an Angus with a -2 EPD?(~a 7 pound drop) just because the number is nicer and risk losing some muscle and possibly livability? The EPDs are numberical tools that describe the genetic diversity within a breed. They aren't score cards. The EPDs tell a bull's potential performance and they need to be read through the prism of what your herd is like and where you are going with them.