Help on Brangus EPDs

[birdog]

Is anyone on here familiar with brangus EPDs? I bought a registered 4 yr old brangus cow a couple of weeks ago heavy bred. I cross the brangus with a beefmaster bull so I wasn't interested in the calf necessarily. I got the papers on the cow and checked the breeding and it looks like she is bred to a pretty good bull. If she has a bull calf I was considering growing him out and using him on the beefmaster x brangus heifers that I've retained. Here are the EPDs and actuals for the bull:
BW: 74 lbs AWW: 687 lbs AYW: 1281 365 SC: 37.3 cm REA: 15.4 sq in %IMF: 4.6 FT: .27

• 
  BW 4.1
  WW 43.8 Rank 3%
  YW 68.8 Rank 3%
  Milk 3.7
  TM 25.6 Rank 20%
  SC 1 Rank 15%
  REA 0.62 Rank 10%
  %IMF 0.13 Rank 10%
  FT 0.001
  
  
  What do you think?

 

[Dusty Britches]

Be careful when reading epds for across breeds. They are not meant to be used that way. Epds are for the breed use only.

I would personally think the bw 4.1 on a brangus bull would be too much for a beefmaster heifer. Cows would be good. But, that is my personal opinion.

What was the actual bw on the bull? Look at the actual bw on the calf when it is born. How big are your intended heifers? You don't want to to calve anything bigger than 8% of their mature weight (1000 pound cow should have a 80 pound calf. Heifers slightly less.)

 

[Caustic Burno]

My concern on a Brangus bull on Beefmasters is that getting to be a lot of Brimmer influence. Those are both composite breeds never did like putting a composite on a composite woodplie is getting real deep here for a consistent calf crop.
You have Angus, Hereford ,Shorthorn, and Brimmer genetics here good gravy what a woodpile.

 

[birdog]

My concern on a Brangus bull on Beefmasters is that getting to be a lot of Brimmer influence. Those are both composite breeds never did like putting a composite on a composite woodplie is getting real deep here for a consistent calf crop.
You have Angus, Hereford ,Shorthorn, and Brimmer genetics here good gravy what a woodpile.

I might just stick to my original game plan and use a charolais for the terminal cross on these heifers. I'm a little gun shy on using charolais on 1st calvers, but as it was pointed out to me in another thread if I do my research I could find a char that will work on heifers.

 

[birdog]

...What was the actual bw on the bull? Look at the actual bw on the calf when it is born. How big are your intended heifers? You don't want to to calve anything bigger than 8% of their mature weight (1000 pound cow should have a 80 pound calf. Heifers slightly less.)

The actual bw on the bull was 74 lbs. These heifers will push 950+ lbs. at 15-16 mos.

Thanks for the replys.