EPD's

[Frankie]

I just wanted to add to dun's post. The baseline is what the EPD's are compared against. The baseline should be the breed average and therefore animals with extremely high or low EPD's are outliers expressing that trait more than an average animal in that breed. This is the reason I don't understand why baselines for beef breeds aren't updated. If a bull "proves" a high milk EPD, for example, he will always show a high milk EPD years down the road even though the breed may have gradual improvement in milk over a span of time.

I don't know about other breeds, but the AAA took all the birth, weaning and yearling weights reported to the Assn in (I think) 1976, averaged them and set that as 0 for EPDs. That's their baseline and it doesn't change. EPD averages change twice a year when the NCE is run and new sire summary comes out. Other breed association used other years to establish a baseline. That's one reason you can't compare EPDs of different breeds directly.

 

[novaman]

I don't know about other breeds, but the AAA took all the birth, weaning and yearling weights reported to the Assn in (I think) 1976, averaged them and set that as 0 for EPDs. That's their baseline and it doesn't change. EPD averages change twice a year when the NCE is run and new sire summary comes out. Other breed association used other years to establish a baseline. That's one reason you can't compare EPDs of different breeds directly.

That is what I don't understand. They update the averages but the baseline never changes. So the average BW is probably 1.0 (just pulling a number). Bulls with BW EPD of 2 would be assumed to throw big calves when really they are just above breed average. Why not adjust the baseline so the average is at 0 and doesn't make these inflated numbers that look bad? Bulls that had very impressive EPD's back in the 80's would still have impressive numbers today, even though he wouldn't mate well with today's cattle. If baselines had been updated that impressive bull from the 80's would look like crap today because of the improvements in the genetics in these ~20 years of breedings.

 

[novaman]

I'm glad they don't change tha baseline, I would have to figure out new mins and maxs that are acceptable too frequently

So the way I understand it, you have set parameters for the EPD numbers you consider for you bulls? I see your point but doesn't it make sense to update the EPD's to more current times? I don't use mins and maxs when I choose bulls. I compare a bull to the breed as a whole. I look for bulls in the top percentiles for the traits I am looking to improve rather than looking for a bull with a very good EPD number for the trait. To each his own I suppose.

 

[dun]

I'm glad they don't change tha baseline, I would have to figure out new mins and maxs that are acceptable too frequently

So the way I understand it, you have set parameters for the EPD numbers you consider for you bulls? I see your point but doesn't it make sense to update the EPD's to more current times? I don't use mins and maxs when I choose bulls. I compare a bull to the breed as a whole. I look for bulls in the top percentiles for the traits I am looking to improve rather than looking for a bull with a very good EPD number for the trait. To each his own I suppose.

Not only bulls, females too. Some traits I have a minimum some a max and some both a min and a max. If you look at the trends for EPDs you can follow the increase or decrease in a given EPD for every trait over the long term. I also think it would probably be cost prohibitive to pay for computer time to recalculate from scratch each EPD every year or so.

 

[Lucky_P]

novaman,
The bull studs post the breed average epds in their catalogs - some have 'em at the bottom of each page, some have them in the back of the catalog. Some indicate whether a bull ranks in the top 25% of epds for a particular trait, while others indicate what percentile( top 1%, 5%, 10%, etc.) a bull ranks in for epds for that trait.

Most of the Angus bulls(or their sons) that we used back in the '80s(Lovana, Pine Drive Big Sky, etc.), aren't too impressive if you compare them to the growth, marbling, ribeye epds of many of the current 'hot' AI sires, and probably wouldn't 'make the cut' today to be a top-selling sire, but they sired some good cattle in their day. For instance, I wouldn't necessarily shy away from a bull like Lovana, as he'd probably sire some females that would work quite nicely in my herd, but his steer calves wouldn't bring what those sired by my current natural service sire do, as they likely wouldn't have the growth or 'carcass' traits of those sired by the bull 'on the ground'.
Different environments and different goals call for different tools. My choice for a 'terminal' sire, whose calves will all be sold as weaned calves, will be a lot different than if I'm trying to breed productive, economical cows that I hope will stay in the herd for a long time.

 

[Double R Ranch]

Good luck. Ive been trying to figure out EPD's for several years. I go off of what other breeders experiance. Maybe some day they will come out with an EPD for dummies book! I'll be the first to buy it!
Double R