GAR Integrity comments

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farmerD44

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I see his epds got way poorer again- pretty much all the way around- the ones that matter anyway- growth, scrotal, and such.

Last year his semen was $40- this year it was $25- next year he may be one of those 12 dollar "commercial" heifer sires :lol:

Of course i shouldn't laugh too much- I am having some tough luck picking AI bulls too. Have not gotten the growth i expected from new design 5050 as of yet. :roll: and he is rated 50ww and 102 yw. Somebody must be fudging the #'s on him.
 
Try comparing his Sire's and Dam's EPD's and THEIR Sire's and Dam's EPD's just to see if their are any glitches!

How old are the calves of 5050 that you are eagerly waiting to appraise?

DOC HARRIS
 
the calves were born in march. Their mothers calved to new design 208 last year and those calves were farther along as this point- so i was expecting even better performance from this bull with his higher growth epds. Also have a couple calves from 5050 out of simmental heifers and they are also rather small compared to the rest of my calves.

Our calves from GAR yield grade were a little better but still not as good as expected. Will be interesting to see what our Gridmaker calves look like next year-since his epd's are supposed to be %90 plus in accuracy. I am thinking that maybe our new herdbull will have better calves than our AI sires :roll: - which isnt a bad thing i guess- just hate to put all that work into AI and get worse calves.
 
Well, if you want proven genetics, bigger weaning and yearling, what about using the proven GAR Pinnacle? He is a bigger BW, has a high weaning and yearling weight and I have seen his calves and they are keepers. GAR Gridmaker is another good bull, but if I remember correctly, he doesn't have the frame. Now, to add pounds, I would use the old bull Genetics by Design, and bull that was leased by Acclerated Genetics. I have used him before and every calf I think was a keeper. Also, had some really good Ultravox calves, another Accelerated bull. HAve you ever considered using the Bando bloodlines? GAR intergrity, not a big bull, and I am not impressed with any of his calves that I have seen out of him before. Let us know what you decide to do. :cboy:
 
farmerD44:
I wouldnt rule out Integrity at all. there are things i see in his calves that are encouraging.

he could turn out to be the perfect cow maker. with his lower YW, his daughters will probably be quite a bit lower on MW which is good for everybody. his YH will also contribute to lower demand (smaller framed females) and with carcass numbers, the cows could be just right. you just have to find a terminal sire with good growth (which is easy) and the cow will help out on the carcass end.

the phenotype in the calves is quite nice from what i have see and i have probably seen 50+ of them in the last year. i have an Integrity daughter (out of a Future Direction daughter) that I like very much and she is growing better than her numbers say she should.

my grandfather had quite a few Yield Grade calves and they are looking pretty good. the only problem i have with them is excess white. it is obvious that Yield Grade is the culprit for that issue when you look at the calves. it is a sure bet that if you see a calf with more white than we like, it has a "YG" on its tag.

if you are looking for growth with average+ frame and good looking calves, I have to suggest G A R New Market 7892; his accuracy is up and i can answer about any question you have about him.
http://www.angus.org/common/epd_ped_det ... d=14222787
 
Aero":3rnxw3sh said:
farmerD44:
I wouldnt rule out Integrity at all. there are things i see in his calves that are encouraging.

he could turn out to be the perfect cow maker. with his lower YW, his daughters will probably be quite a bit lower on MW which is good for everybody. his YH will also contribute to lower demand (smaller framed females) and with carcass numbers, the cows could be just right. you just have to find a terminal sire with good growth (which is easy) and the cow will help out on the carcass end.

the phenotype in the calves is quite nice from what i have see and i have probably seen 50+ of them in the last year. i have an Integrity daughter (out of a Future Direction daughter) that I like very much and she is growing better than her numbers say she should.

my grandfather had quite a few Yield Grade calves and they are looking pretty good. the only problem i have with them is excess white. it is obvious that Yield Grade is the culprit for that issue when you look at the calves. it is a sure bet that if you see a calf with more white than we like, it has a "YG" on its tag.

if you are looking for growth with average+ frame and good looking calves, I have to suggest G A R New Market 7892; his accuracy is up and i can answer about any question you have about him.
http://www.angus.org/common/epd_ped_det ... d=14222787

We didn't have any white in the few yield grade calves we had other than the crossbred ones. One of the 5050 heifer calves has white on its udder i seen when it was laying on its side one day. I have heard lots of rumors that the new designs have holstein blood a ways back in their ancestory- so that would explain the white i reckon :roll:

so what about Pinnacle?? has anyone got any calves from him??
 
I like Grid Maker but I have to say Im a big fan of 2V1...If your using these on commercial stock get War Alliance...Look into Gar Solution as well...good luck...

I go to a lot of reg Angus sales..I have noticed time and time again when heifers out of the same cow and different bulls sell if one of the heifers is out of Interity it will sale for the least amount..
 
gh1217":tprpnjh0 said:
I like Grid Maker but I have to say Im a big fan of 2V1...If your using these on commercial stock get War Alliance...Look into Gar Solution as well...good luck...

I go to a lot of reg Angus sales..I have noticed time and time again when heifers out of the same cow and different bulls sell if one of the heifers is out of Interity it will sale for the least amount..
At the Wehrmann Angus Female sale or Bull sale, I have noticed that as well about the Integrity offspring. :cboy:
 
Are Gardiners the only people selling semen these days. Try something weird and try something other than a New Design or Precision.

Don't worry about the EPD's just pick good cattle. If we believe in the EPD's they will likely disappoint more than make you happy.

Bulls like Rito 2V1 are disgusting, if his pedigree was anything else in this world, he wouldn't bring $2500.
 
Hill Creek Farm":wjbbvdon said:
At the Wehrmann Angus Female sale or Bull sale, I have noticed that as well about the Integrity offspring. :cboy:

did you not notice that the Integrity daughter (10 mo old out of 2536) was the top lot ($170,000) at their sale last in august?
 
SEC:
are you saying to not use EPDs at all?

even EPD haters still use the BW EPD which i think is pretty funny.

people that dont use EPDs at all are just as blind as the folks that only use EPDs. making good matings based on phenotypic and genotypic information is the mark of a true cattleman.

the only way i can understand someone not using EPDs is if they think the EPDs are wrong. I have met very few people that think the information is incorrect; they just dont like changing the way they have done it for years and would prefer to ignore good information than have to learn something new.
 
Don't worry about the EPD's just pick good cattle. If we believe in the EPD's they will likely disappoint more than make you happy.
SEC- This statement is tantamount to saying, "Don't worry about feeding Minerals or Fertilizing your crops! Just feed good hay! The minerals and fertilizers are not worth the money or effort!" I am CERTAIN that you don't mean that" . . . do you???????

DOC HARRIS
 
SEC":199clflp said:
Are Gardiners the only people selling semen these days. Try something weird and try something other than a New Design or Precision.

Don't worry about the EPD's just pick good cattle. If we believe in the EPD's they will likely disappoint more than make you happy.

Bulls like Rito 2V1 are disgusting, if his pedigree was anything else in this world, he wouldn't bring $2500.

SEC- i may have asked u this in the past- but what is your opinion of gridmaker??? Ignoring the precision further back in his pedigree??? What do u think of him as a sire and is his growth potential as good as they claim???

And i am trying other things- i am using rito 2x15 on my heifers and our new herdsire is an alliance son with the pedigree on his dam's side going back to WR Bar Marriot. This is in addition to most of our cattle being simmental and angus crossbreeds. I am taking it slow getting into the angus purebred bussiness and will probably end up crossing most of them with simmentals someday anyway- they work out great on our feedlot. :cboy:
 
Might as well put my two cents in. I was amazed at the public response to "integrity", I looked at the picture of that bull and thought yuck. In talking to people around the country, the tide has turned on the GAR single trait selection train. There are a lot of cattlemen out there that are not pleased with what they are ending up with.

On Gridmaker, I have seen several of his daughters and I like them, they come big though. I wouldn't use him. Maybe a son?

Doc: Epds are only as good as the people who are fudging the numbers for them. :D
 
EPD's are fine. BUT this is a big BUT!

If everyone can use a terrible looking bull because they are intrigued by his numbers why won't anyone use a terrific looking bull that has average numbers?

If a breeders uses a bull with ok EPD's it's because it's his clean up bull and that becomes the excuse. I would like to see a raise of hands on how many people will use a AI bull with just average numbers, let alone carcass EPD's.

I think it's because they would feel they are going backward as the EPD's would go down rather than up.

My jury is out on EPD's. I have thoroughly visited with many people but I am not willing to sell my soul to them quite yet.

9/10 people will breed with EPD's to correct the EPD problems but nothing that deals with the cattle themselves.

There are some EPD's I find more accurate than others. Mainly, bwt and Scrotal after that........I think we are pulling wool over everyones eyes.

Since EPD's are to be used within herd, it doesn't give us much to go with. If you keep flipping the generations year after year using the latest greatest the EPd's will be stellar.

For the average breeder, most cows don't ever gather a high accuracy number, nor do the pasture bulls. They can't for many reasons, but if they aren't deemed accurate than what are we supposed to count on.

What about the bull that has a +10 Milk EPD, yet you have calved out a couple of sets of daughters and they wean nice calves that are not short of milk and are average amongst their contemporaries. This milk number suggests lesser milk production than the average cow so we get down on that. Yet, we know ourselves that the animal raising a good calf and isn't shorting it 's potential one little bit.
 
My feelings on Gridmaker...............................

If I was a Chianina breeder i would be proud!

The cattle are lots better than he is, thankfully. I like their growth, structure, hair.

I hair their attitude and what their sire looks like. The fact that there are animals that look like that back in an animals pedigree makes me fear the chance of it showing up again.

This may seem a little narrow minded but why allow for genetics that aren't right in my herd. This allows for a better chance of it revealing itself again down the line.

I like the "pure"genetics and if ( undoubtedly will happen) the same lines get crossed again, we might be terrified with the freaks that might appear!
 
SEC":3ed7h6yw said:
This milk number suggests lesser milk production than the average cow so we get down on that. Yet, we know ourselves that the animal raising a good calf and isn't shorting it 's potential one little bit.

not completely correct.

the Milk EPD is a combination of actual milk production and mothering ability. it is a measurement of pounds added to the calf. a cow with less than average milk can add more pounds than the average cow by being a good mother. conversely, a cow with gallons of milk might raise a terrible calf if she wont let him suck.
 

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