greenwillowherefords
Well-known member
Laying aside all disagreements about how accurate and reliable EPDs really are, I want to know if most agree with this statement: Weaning and yearling weights and their corresponding EPDs are increased by selection of the high-indexing individuals among contemporary groups. (The same philosophy can apply to any trait and its EPD) If one is pushing for increased WW and YW, they may then mate two high-indexing, high EPD animals, and so the pattern goes on. We had to arrive at the current breed averages from the original "0" by some method, and that seems to be the only common sense way to do it. So given a contemporary group of animals, with all EPDs being fairly close, does it not make sense to select the individual with the best personal data? Somehow, a cow and a bull who nick well are able to produce a calf who exceeds both their EPDs, and that calf is likely to be the outstanding individual of his group, IMHO.