EPD's What Do They Mean?

[Scotty]

How'd that sale go?

Really well for them. I can't remeber the averages. It came out in the AJ I think a few months ago. If you read their sale book it reads just like GAR. 90% or so of thier donors are GAR rasied. As well as their sires. They had some good looking cattle. IMO buy cattle not names. That tradition and such only gets you so far.


Scotty

 

[cedar]

Frankie, in your answer to total herd reporting; if your animal is registered you have to report something...whether open, calf died at birth, etc....you have to account for that cows productivity. Unlike other breed reporting where only part of the calf crop is accounted for, it makes the best animals that are reported look closer to average than they really are. Total Herd reporting takes the whole breed into accountabiility not just the best of the animals getting data provided.
Jeff at Cedarbrook

 

[Frankie]

Frankie, in your answer to total herd reporting; if your animal is registered you have to report something...whether open, calf died at birth, etc....you have to account for that cows productivity. Unlike other breed reporting where only part of the calf crop is accounted for, it makes the best animals that are reported look closer to average than they really are. Total Herd reporting takes the whole breed into accountabiility not just the best of the animals getting data provided.
Jeff at Cedarbrook

You didn't answer the question: "what happens if you don't report a calf on a cow one year?"

And how does the Assn know if you had a calf born weighing 100 lbs, weaning at 300 and you reported it as having died or the cow as open? Do they send someone out to look at your cattle?

 

[la4angus]

And how does the Assn know if you had a calf born weighing 100 lbs, weaning at 300 and you reported it as having died or the cow as open? Do they send someone out to look at your cattle?

The numbers being reported are only as honest as the person reporting them. Figures don't lie, But liars figure.

 

[Brandonm2]

Frankie, in your answer to total herd reporting; if your animal is registered you have to report something...whether open, calf died at birth, etc....you have to account for that cows productivity. Unlike other breed reporting where only part of the calf crop is accounted for, it makes the best animals that are reported look closer to average than they really are. Total Herd reporting takes the whole breed into accountabiility not just the best of the animals getting data provided.
Jeff at Cedarbrook

You didn't answer the question: "what happens if you don't report a calf on a cow one year?"

And how does the Assn know if you had a calf born weighing 100 lbs, weaning at 300 and you reported it as having died or the cow as open? Do they send someone out to look at your cattle?

IF somebody is really dishonest they are going to report the 100 lb birthweight at 80 lbs and the 300 lb weaning wt at 550. Why would they hurt their cow's production record??

 

[Aero]

And how does the Assn know if you had a calf born weighing 100 lbs, weaning at 300 and you reported it as having died or the cow as open? Do they send someone out to look at your cattle?

scarily enough, in the infancy of the current AAA EPD system, they had certified people that came out to see you weigh your calves.

 

[ollie']

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 you are distorting the argument and you are smart enough to know that. Is a +5 bull weighing 10 pounds more than a -5 bull not a measure of preformance..
In your testimonie you left out how your stocking rate, bw, ww, yw personally have improved over the last 10 years. Then how have your feed inputs, longevity, etc faired?
When doing that frankie, I am not expecting actual figures. I beleive you know your cattle and I trust your judgement. Just tell me have all areas been consistant preformance wise with the increase or decrease of your epd's?

 

[Saltydawg]

Ollie lets assume you need to purchase a bull.

What is your procedure? What kind of stuff do you look for and what do you want from that bull?

 

[ollie']

Ollie lets assume you need to purchase a bull.

What is your procedure? What kind of stuff do you look for and what do you want from that bull?

You have to establish what market you want to fill. Then you have to decide what your cows are lacking to achieve good results for that market . Then go find a bull that you think will satisfy that need. To be able to find the bull you have to have knowledge of cattle and knowledge about your seedstock provider.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I would like to clarify a few things. From some of the comments I'm not sure everyone knows what PHENOTYPE means. It is WHAT YOU CAN SEE. Like polled/horned, black/red, structure, volume, muscle, etc. What you can see in/about the animal. GENOTYPE is pedigree.
Also, waaayy back in this conversation someone asked about growth traits vs milking traits. There are many traits that are antagonistic (sp?) to others. Like - low birth weights & heavy weaning/yearling weights. Very antagonistic.
Heavy WW, YW and heavy milking - antagonistic.
Direct CE and Maternal CE - antagonistic.
As everyone knows, Simmental is a high milking cow, but even within our breed you will definately see a difference in the growth bulls and their milking traits.
We as Simmental breeders (and I'm sure many others) have used EPD's to find the bulls that went againts the NORMAL. We call them "spread bulls". Now we have many bulls with low birth weights & high WW, YW. And also, have growth bulls with good milking numbers.
This is what a BREED can achieve using EPD's.
I believe other breeds have used EPD's to improve TEMPERAMENT, SCROTAL SIZE, FERTILITY - using EPD's.

 

[Saltydawg]

Yes Genotype is the genetic information passed from generation to generation.
Phenotype is what happens when the genotype interacts with the environment and we make an animal.

This is why the breed associations can't tell you exactly how each individual animal will perform....even if it comes from a good genotype.
They can't control the environment the animal is raised in...thats our job.

EPD's are just raw data on genetic potential of an animal. Used properly you can direct your herd and breed development in different directions.

I'm gonna bow out of this discussion now hehe. I am not an expert on genetics so don't feel comfortable giving opinions beyond what I believe are the intended uses of EPD's.

I think they are a useful tool and I am using them with my breeding program now but they are only part of the equation with regards to raising quality animals with the traits you want.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Yes Genotype is the genetic information passed from generation to generation.
Phenotype is what happens when the genotype interacts with the environment and we make an animal.

You are correct on environment affecting the animal.
But, environment does not affect phenotype. Phenotype is how GENES affect what you see. Those genes may be EXPRESSED better or worse (as far as thickness, volume, etc) based on environment.
Not arguing - just clarifying.

 

[Brandonm2]

But, environment does not affect phenotype. Phenotype is how GENES affect what you see. Those genes may be EXPRESSED better or worse (as far as thickness, volume, etc) based on environment.
Not arguing - just clarifying.

That is NOT true Jean. Genotype (ie the actual genes in an animal) never changes; but phenotype (what we see) absolutely does have an environmental component. An animal can have the genes to be a 3500 lb frame score 9 (if fed heavily and pampered); but if he never receives any supplemental feed and is raised in a less than lush environment he may never come close to that extreme size. That same bull could be a 2400 lb frame 7 on a typical grass farm or a long and skinny cull calve in a bad environment. A lot of heifers out there get stunted and never are the size cow that they could have been. An Angus mama cow in Florida probably won't grow out as well as she would in Montana. How we feed them, the forages they consume, the heat of the summer, the cold of the winter, the level of mineral supplementation etc all effects what we see.....ie the phenotype. Genes are obviously the most important component of phenotype; but phenotype is simply the actual animal (depth of rib, frame, degree of muscling, size of head, length, color, thickness of hair coat, substance of bone, spring of rib, head shape, body condition, etc)

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Brandonm2, you are exactly right. I never questioned whether environment could permanently affect the "looks" of an animal. I just thought the true "meaning" of phenotype was how the genes were expressed.
But dictionary definition is:
"the detectable expression of the interaction of genotype and environment"
So you're description was perfect and I stand corrected.
I HATE to be wrong
And when I think about it, I would actually use the term to describe an animal "as I saw it".

 

[Frankie]

Ollie said:

Frankie you are distorting the argument and you are smart enough to know that. Is a +5 bull weighing 10 pounds more than a -5 bull not a measure of preformance..
In your testimonie you left out how your stocking rate, bw, ww, yw personally have improved over the last 10 years. Then how have your feed inputs, longevity, etc faired?
When doing that frankie, I am not expecting actual figures. I beleive you know your cattle and I trust your judgement. Just tell me have all areas been consistant preformance wise with the increase or decrease of your epd's?

Yes, the +5 bull weighing ten more pounds than the other is a product of THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE, not their own EPDs. Their EPDs indicate what you would EXPECT from their calves, not their own performance. Their own performance and the performance of their calves is greatly affected by management. That's why we use contemporary groups where all animals are managed the same to produce EPDs.

I'm not going to get into details of my operation here. Our bottom line has improved as the EPDs on our cattle's have improved. Since no one on the place has an outside job anymore, we can't afford to support the cow herd. No, they don't support us, but we, for sure, can't afford to support them.

As for consistency, we've made mistakes in selecting animals, bulls and cows. But I don't blame EPDs for that.

I'm totally convinced that the dominance of the Angus breed today is because of EPDs. CAB has helped, but, as we all know, any black animal that meets the USDA specs can be CAB, but they don't have Angus EPDs. I've said before that EPDs was one of the reasons we bought our first Angus bull to use on some heifers.

Today at consignment sales, a good looking, well bred heifer can come through the ring without EPDs and she'll take a $2-300 discount compared to similar heifers with EPDs. Basically, if you don't have EPDs on your Angus cattle, you're raising commercial Angus. That's not necessarily all bad, in my area, there's a good demand for commercial Angus heifers.

 

[ollie']

Ollie said:

Frankie you are distorting the argument and you are smart enough to know that. Is a +5 bull weighing 10 pounds more than a -5 bull not a measure of preformance..
In your testimonie you left out how your stocking rate, bw, ww, yw personally have improved over the last 10 years. Then how have your feed inputs, longevity, etc faired?
When doing that frankie, I am not expecting actual figures. I beleive you know your cattle and I trust your judgement. Just tell me have all areas been consistant preformance wise with the increase or decrease of your epd's?

Yes, the +5 bull weighing ten more pounds than the other is a product of THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE, not their own EPDs. Their EPDs indicate what you would EXPECT from their calves, not their own performance. Their own performance and the performance of their calves is greatly affected by management. That's why we use contemporary groups where all animals are managed the same to produce EPDs.

I'm not going to get into details of my operation here. Our bottom line has improved as the EPDs on our cattle's have improved. Since no one on the place has an outside job anymore, we can't afford to support the cow herd. No, they don't support us, but we, for sure, can't afford to support them.

As for consistency, we've made mistakes in selecting animals, bulls and cows. But I don't blame EPDs for that.

I'm totally convinced that the dominance of the Angus breed today is because of EPDs. CAB has helped, but, as we all know, any black animal that meets the USDA specs can be CAB, but they don't have Angus EPDs. I've said before that EPDs was one of the reasons we bought our first Angus bull to use on some heifers.

Today at consignment sales, a good looking, well bred heifer can come through the ring without EPDs and she'll take a $2-300 discount compared to similar heifers with EPDs. Basically, if you don't have EPDs on your Angus cattle, you're raising commercial Angus. That's not necessarily all bad, in my area, there's a good demand for commercial Angus heifers.

Thanks Frankie, those statements are valid. I as well agree with epd's being at least part of the dominance...I also think the epd craze of late is a large part of the increase in price with angus bulls. I also certainly agree that epd's have at least a percieved value which make them bring more money...I just don't believe that those individual numbers are very useful when it comes to bull selection at the commercial level.

 

[Frankie]

Good morning, Ollie. Good to see you up and about. As some breeds scramble to stay afloat, they've turned to EPDs to save them. In my opinion, not all breed's EPDs are as reliable as they should be. And there are always producers looking for the "magic bullet" to fix their breeding operation. Some of them have selected EPDs as that magic bullet. But as has been said on these pages time and again, they're another tool to be used to select a bull.

 

[MikeC]

Good morning, Ollie. Good to see you up and about. As some breeds scramble to stay afloat, they've turned to EPDs to save them. In my opinion, not all breed's EPDs are as reliable as they should be. And there are always producers looking for the "magic bullet" to fix their breeding operation. Some of them have selected EPDs as that magic bullet. But as has been said on these pages time and again, they're another tool to be used to select a bull.

Could you tell us which breeds (In your opinion) EPD's are not as reliable as they should be? And why do you think this?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Good morning, Ollie. Good to see you up and about. As some breeds scramble to stay afloat, they've turned to EPDs to save them. In my opinion, not all breed's EPDs are as reliable as they should be. And there are always producers looking for the "magic bullet" to fix their breeding operation. Some of them have selected EPDs as that magic bullet. But as has been said on these pages time and again, they're another tool to be used to select a bull.

Aren't you glad that the Simmental breed STARTED the EPD's?? Actually, they started out being ??EBV?? (?estimated breeding value??) too long ago can't remember. We used to be the only breed with CE epd's - both direct & maternal, and ALL Simmental's have EPD's.

 

[aplusmnt]

Good morning, Ollie. Good to see you up and about. As some breeds scramble to stay afloat, they've turned to EPDs to save them. In my opinion, not all breed's EPDs are as reliable as they should be. And there are always producers looking for the "magic bullet" to fix their breeding operation. Some of them have selected EPDs as that magic bullet. But as has been said on these pages time and again, they're another tool to be used to select a bull.

Aren't you glad that the Simmental breed STARTED the EPD's?? Actually, they started out being ??EBV?? (?estimated breeding value??) too long ago can't remember. We used to be the only breed with CE epd's - both direct & maternal, and ALL Simmental's have EPD's.

Wondering what would be considered a good epd for milk on a Simmental? Seems there numbers are lower compared to say Angus numbers. If a good milk angus epd is in say high 20's what is a comparible number for a Simmental?