Hereford BW EPDs?

[Copenhagen & Shiner B]

What is a good birthweight number for a Hereford (Horned or Polled) bull to be used on cows and heifers?

 

[greenwillowherefords]

I have successfully used breed average area. A lot depends on what type of heifers you have. We literally never pulled a calf using a breed average EPD bull on groups that were at least half heifers. His individual BW was 87#. His calves ranged from the low seventies to the high nineties, and it seemed to depend more on the cow than the bull IMO. Breed average at the time was about 3.6. I think it may be 3.8 now. Having said this, the safest route is to not only look at calving ease, but go with 0.0 or under.

 

[greenwillowherefords]

I don't mean to swerve too far afield from your main subject, but I am more concerned with actual BW of the sire, dam, grandsire, grandam, and the subject animal, than I am the EPD.

I am not opposed to EPDs, but if the animal is not from a TPR herd, and the accuracies are very low, I put more stock in actual performance. To illustrate why: My former herd bull, Day Rupert Tone 092 (now in a commercial herd) had a WW EPD of about 17 or so, and a YW EPD in the mid twenties. His BW was the breed average or close to it. His daughters averaged 101% WW head to head with the progeny of an ANL Quest bull that had WW EPD in the mid thirties and YW around 60. This in the same herd. The cows bred to 092 actually had lower EPDs than the others.
My brother and associate at this time has a bull calf sired by 092 that had a BW in the mid seventies, and at five months weighs 541 pounds without being pampered and pushed.