Holden Herefords

[SRBeef]

Hopefully the breeder knows far more about his bulls than I do or could from a catalog. A breeder who wants my return business and if he can count on me to come back if satisfied will know and recommend his bull best suited for my needs once he knows those needs.

So rather than trying to decipher the prose in a catalog I think the best way to bull a buill is to tell the breeder what I need and price range and let him recommend which of his bulls is best suited to my need list.

At that point it is up to me to make a final decision but in the end if I have trust in the breeder I will go with his recommendation rather than trying to decide on my own from a seat in the balcony of a beauty contest. jmho. Jim

 

[TexasBred]

It's that accuracy number that so many seem to ignor, overlook, or fail to understand its significance!

And that has a lot to do with how so many of these breeders are currently"mis"using EPDs as promotion tools. How many catalogs do you see where the accuracy number is published along with the EPDs?

George

The we have "accurate" "estimates". (E)

 

[Idaman]

Numbers and play dough are both fun to play with but be careful what you try and build with them!!!!

I am and never have been a fan of numbers but there is one in the present Angus Assoc. that intrigues me and that is $EN. Over the last year or so we have been putting together a small herd of registered Angus.
As we went around and looked at available cattle we noticed a vast difference in the size or frame score of those we looked at. Weights ranged from 1100 to 1750 for the mature cows. As I read the EPD info I noticed that the $EN could predict to an amazing degree of accuracy the size of the cattle we were going to look at. Of course one component of %EN is size as related to efficiency. We now feel that we can pretty accurately predict the size of any cattle we might look at by looking at their $EN.

These two statements seem to be contradictory. To have faith in the derivative, it would seem that you need to have faith in the numbers used to derive it!

George

You are correct. I do have a measured amount of faith in the EPD that helps to arrive at the derivative that makes up the $EN for mature size. In the Diamond D example the raw weaning weight is used and the estimated condition score are used to arrive at the % cow calf ratio. When I look at this ratio I then observe the $EN number to see whether we have a smaller fat cow or a larger cow carrying a lot of fat.

If we start with an 1100 lb. cow and then adjust for an 8 condition score which is -240 then we continue with the resultant 860 lbs. times 77% we come up with a 662 lb. calf which seems possible to me.

 

[SRBeef]

I am sorry but I do not see the logic to necessarily deducting 240 lb from an 1100 lb cow's weight, even in the hypothetical BCS 8 cow. Is this saying that she is overly fat and her real weight at say a BCS 5 would be 860 lb? And if she was this BCS 5 and 860 lb she would still 205 day wean a 660 lb (77% of that 860 lb) calf? I question whether that is the case. An 860 lb mature Hereford cow is pretty unusual I would think. And even if one did exist I doubt she would wean a 660 lb calf without creep.

I don't mean to beat this topic any more but I just question the value of that 77% number. It seems to me that there is almost no way that any healthy productive cow can wean a 77% calf no matter whether her condition is 5, 6, 7 or 8. Putting a percent to it makes it seem like that is a real number rather than a relative number.

Jim

 

[Brandonm22]

The show ring would be an interesting place if cattle had to be six years old with 90% accuracies before they could be brought out.

Such a show would serve absolutely NO purpose whatsoever. A "show" (at least in theory) uses visual evaluation to rank the cattle. Once you have a field full of calves to evaluate a bull with, you judge him by his calves NOT by his own visual appearance. Visual evaluation (like pedigree study, actual performance measurements, and virgin EPDs) is an attempt to predict what an animal WILL do before we have anything real (ie progeny) to judge by. Once you have 200 progeny out in the fields to evaluate, you judge a bull by what he actually did. The progeny matter more than how bull #1 profiles or whether or not I prefer how he sets up versus bull #2. It is the same with the EPDs. His performance and his sibs performance matters in a virgin EPD. Once a bull has got 200+ progeny in the tabulations they overwhelms that virgin EPD data in the calculations.

 

[Idaman]

In looking into the cow/calf weight % ratio I see that in the Pharo fall 2010 sale catalog they use actual weights with no adjustments. The have some 68% actual cow calf weights. They are mostly on lighter 2 year old heifers that wean 500 plus pound calves. I would imagine that those heifers did not have a very high condition score but at that point in their lives they are very efficient.

 

[Herefords.US]

In looking into the cow/calf weight % ratio I see that in the Pharo fall 2010 sale catalog they use actual weights with no adjustments. The have some 68% actual cow calf weights. They are mostly on lighter 2 year old heifers that wean 500 plus pound calves. I would imagine that those heifers did not have a very high condition score but at that point in their lives they are very efficient.

I had one of those myself this year. When she calved in winter she had a retained placenta and never seemed to get really healthy even after spring grass came. I decided to sell her when her calf got old enough because, for one reason, I was sure she probably wouldn't breed back on time. She weighed 860 at the sale barn and her calf weighed 540 at sub 205 days. I had her preg checked, more out of curiosity than anything, and she checked ~4 months. I had some other reasons for culling her as well, but seeing that she rebred that quickly sure made me wonder if I did the right thing by selling her. In the past I've had first calf heifers who were in much better condition that didn't rebreed that fast.

George

 

[Brandonm22]

It's that accuracy number that so many seem to ignor, overlook, or fail to understand its significance!

And that has a lot to do with how so many of these breeders are currently"mis"using EPDs as promotion tools. How many catalogs do you see where the accuracy number is published along with the EPDs?

George

Most sales are going to be heifers, cows less than 7 years old, and virgin bulls. I hope everybody understands that they are looking at 25% accuracy or less on those populations.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Show ring kind of meaningless at any age.

 

[rocket2222]

Seems like at lot of folks here lately in various threads are basing the cows efficiency on her percentage of weaning weight to body weight with absolutely no idea what the cow ate. She could have ate twice as much as the cow that weaned a 60% actual cow/calf weight, and actually be less efficient. With out knowing the exact amount the cow ate and comparing it to others in the same contemporary group, there's absolutely no way of knowing how efficient she is. Heaviest calf doesn't always mean more efficient.

 

[Brandonm22]

Show ring kind of meaningless at any age.

No disagreement here. I like visual evaluation, but when you raise cattle in artificial conditions, grow and style their hair to cover up imperfections and create a false impression of thickness, and feed hyper loaded rations it can become rather pointless.