HP In Focus question

[Prairiegrass]

Over the last couple of years many people on this list have mentioned using the angus bull Mytty In Focus and been happy with his calves. It seems many Sim and Gelbvieh breeders have used him to breed SimAngus and Balancers. I assume with good capacity and both a low BW and rib eye he is a good continental cross. During the time of his heavy use I avoided using him for a maternal bull due to his really poor HPR and below average ribeye – I also like to see bulls proven fairly well before I use them for keeping heifers. I recently used one of his sons for calving ease and growth. I really like the capacity and temperament of his calves, as has been mentioned by others on this site. This year the In Focus HP epd really jumped (suspiciously so) and while still low, I am considering using either him or one of his sons and keeping heifers. Have a hard time believing he would be so popular if his fertility was poor, but 878 had crappy feet and legs and ABS made a ton of money on him. I asked my ABS rep where the numbers come from for heifer pregnancy rate, and he really wasn't sure, though he thought it was a computed/indirect number. I have two questions for the group:
1. How is the HR or HPR computed, and does it take synchronized versus natural heats into account when pregnancies are recorded? For instance, if a bull is used a lot in TAI synch programs I would expect lower conception rates than if used off visualized standing heats. Is this taken into account? Do purebred breeders take sire HP numbers onto account when keeping heifers? Is this too vague a number to pay attention to? I haven't heard anyone mention fertility issues with his daughters but I'm commercial so don't hear all the purebred "gossip".
2. If I get by the HP and ribeye numbers, what do people think of the feet and legs on this In Focus bull? Those that have kept daughters, what do you like/dislike about them? Considering the expense of his semen now, is there a son you like better?
Thank you for your time.

 

[HOSS]

Over the last couple of years many people on this list have mentioned using the angus bull Mytty In Focus and been happy with his calves. It seems many Sim and Gelbvieh breeders have used him to breed SimAngus and Balancers. I assume with good capacity and both a low BW and rib eye he is a good continental cross. During the time of his heavy use I avoided using him for a maternal bull due to his really poor HPR and below average ribeye – I also like to see bulls proven fairly well before I use them for keeping heifers. I recently used one of his sons for calving ease and growth. I really like the capacity and temperament of his calves, as has been mentioned by others on this site. This year the In Focus HP epd really jumped (suspiciously so) and while still low, I am considering using either him or one of his sons and keeping heifers. Have a hard time believing he would be so popular if his fertility was poor, but 878 had crappy feet and legs and ABS made a ton of money on him. I asked my ABS rep where the numbers come from for heifer pregnancy rate, and he really wasn't sure, though he thought it was a computed/indirect number. I have two questions for the group:
1. How is the HR or HPR computed, and does it take synchronized versus natural heats into account when pregnancies are recorded? For instance, if a bull is used a lot in TAI synch programs I would expect lower conception rates than if used off visualized standing heats. Is this taken into account? Do purebred breeders take sire HP numbers onto account when keeping heifers? Is this too vague a number to pay attention to? I haven't heard anyone mention fertility issues with his daughters but I'm commercial so don't hear all the purebred "gossip".
2. If I get by the HP and ribeye numbers, what do people think of the feet and legs on this In Focus bull? Those that have kept daughters, what do you like/dislike about them? Considering the expense of his semen now, is there a son you like better?
Thank you for your time.

Prariegrass, I have used MIF in my A.I. program on heifers. All took on their first service. I retained 2 heifers from that batch and they now have 5 month old heifers at their side (A.I. sired by a balancer bull). So far I couldn't ask for better females. They have retained their condition really well for first time calvers even when the drought conditions had my pastures looking like a brown carpet. So far their feet and legs appear to be very sound. They are very docile and easy to work with. The MIF sired calves were born in the mid 60's on BW and really grew off well for heifers weaning just above 600 lbs. I would definetly use MIF again and I might on my Gelbvieh cows to make some dandy balancers. Not being familiar with all of the angus epd numbers I can't really explain the HP issue.

 

[sizmic]

I understand that HP epd is a calculation derived from data turned in on how many of a particular sires daughters make it to "motherhood". It doesn't have a thing to do with conception of a sires daughters, other than the fact that they obviously bred or they wouldn't have calved. I.E. if a breeder turns all data in, they (AAA) have a good idea of which sires are making good enough heifers to be used as replacements. Thats why MIF took a jump in HP epd, more data came in after he was well proven in other areas and people really liked them.

Sizmic

Edit: MIF's son AAR Ten X is getting a lot of attention right now! I used him a lot this year.

 

[sizmic]

Appears I was wrong and you were right.
http://www.angus.org/Nce/HeiferPregnancy.aspx

Sizmic

 

[Prairiegrass]

Sizmic and Hoos thanks for your replies. It appears to me that purebrand breeders aren't making much of the HP epd, or else like MIF too much in other areas that they have ignored the HP data. Even with the increase to 5.4 that is still at the bottom of the breed. With fertility so tightly associated with profitabilty in commercial herds (and purebred??) I would think there would be more discussion on this issue. On the other hand, MIF is the second highest for path finder daughters, so they must be getting pregnant. Thanks again for the input, PG

 

[cow pollinater]

Maybe I'm missing something here... How do you see a 5.4 as being at the bottom of the breed for daughter fertility?
I can kind of understand the ribeye thinking but at -.09 I'd have to say that it's not quite a disqualifying factor. You're nitpicking over fractions of an inch.

 

[Prairiegrass]

Cow Pollinater

Thank you for the input. Numerically, MIF has been at the bottom of the breed for REA and HP. I would think breeders would find those numbers disqualifying for use in their breeding programs, esp the HP. To the contrary, MIF was heavily used. I can see why contenetal breeders ignored his ribeye because it could be countered with a large continental ribeye - did they feel cross breeding would handle the fertility question? What about pure bred guys? Was it because HP was a new EPD and breeders knew it wasn't to be "trusted" yet? MIF is now number 2 or 3 for pathfinder daughters on a % qualified basis, so to me that means fertility isn 't an issue. If that's the case, what to do with the HP EPD? Is it any good at all? As of today, MIF has moved to 6.5 for HP which has more than doubled in the last 1.5 years. However, when he was hot he was in the bottom 5 % of the breed and even now is still in the bottom 15% of the breed for this epd with a 72% accuracy. Is it nit picking to fault a bull for being in the bottom 15% of an economically important trait? Is this nitpicking because you don't trust HP to be an accurate indicator of fertitlity or because he does so many other things well that poor fertility is a minor fault? It could be said that he was a great calving ease bull with growth and a good disposition, hence the heavy use. But it;but it's obvious that he's being used for maternal. That's my question - How to make use of the HP epd?

 

[cow pollinater]

Cow Pollinater

Numerically, MIF has been at the bottom of the breed for REA and HP.

No he hasn't. And not by a long shot. He's not fantastic in either trait but he's not bottom of the breed by any stretch of the imagination. REA is measured in inches so a -.09 means that he's giving calves that are literally fractions of an inch smaller. That's NOT a good thing but it's not enough of a reason to discount a really good bull either.
HP is a trait where positives are better as it's based on the daughters ability to breed back. There are certainly better bulls on this trait out there but overall it is still an improvement for the average angus cow even if it's a small one. He won't help infertile cattle have fertile daughters much but if there are no pre-existing fertility issues he's a great choice.
I have a hunch you're using AI catalogs as your definition of breed standard. That's not reality... especially among highly proven bulls.

 

[Prairiegrass]

What I do is go to the AAA website and type in the registration number of the bull I'm interested in. I then click on the EPD percentiles at the bottom of the page and this brings up a graph showing where the bull sits compared to all other registered angus sires. 50% is the breed average. When I do this for MIF, his ribeye sits in the 95 percentile, which I thought means he is in the bottom 5% of the breed for this trait, and likewise sits at the bottom 15% for HP. That's where I got the impression he was at the bottom of the breed for these traits - by reading this graph. I must be misreading this information. Thank you the information.

 

[JustSimmental]

We used MYTTY years ago on 600U PBSM cows, Blk Irish Ks Cows, CNSDO Cows and Lucky Dice cows and they made some great daughters. We were not concerned about REA b/c that was a strong trait in PBSM. We also have PBAN and the best performers are MYTTY cows in Angus. Sons of MYTTY that we feel are even better than MYTTY are WHS Limelight and SS Fastrack.

One thing I believe that drove us to use MYTTY in Focus was his calves great docility, b/c docile calves sell better than the high headed ones. Simmental being really docile MYTTY worked really well there too. If I had to choose a son of Mytty it would be WHS LImelight really because of his awesome MGS.

Those that have kept daughters, what do you like/dislike about them? Considering the expense of his semen now, is there a son you like better?
Thank you for your time.

 

[ousoonerfan22]

What about the Ten X son have you used him?

 

[Prairiegrass]

I agree that Limelight throws very nice heifers. I have 10 calves this year that look very nice and have good temperaments. I originally used Limelight as a terminal calving ease sire - thought his $EN and HP too low and and frame to big for keeping heifers. But I really like the look of his calves last year so kept a set of twins out of a Gelbvieh heifer - they are a little larger framed than I like but have good temperaments and both stuck to the first AI. SS rep couldn't get me any more LL semen after my initial purchase, but I have three more heifers this year and I'll be keeping them. It was the look of these calves that got me thinking maybe I should go back to the source and try MIF. I assume the MIF daughters will have better udders than the Limelight daughters. I have a lot of Predestined (Limelights MGS) in my herd. They are great cows except the udder quality isn't quite where I want it. I talked to multiple breeders before using him and they all gave positive reviews concerning his udders, but in my herd they're taking them in the wrong direction, and I see that SS has dropped his udder scores from 5 to 3. Since MIF has good udder scores, I'm hoping Limelight throws better udders than Predestined. Any one know why SelectSires ran out of semen 11/2 years ago? I have not used or heard anything about Ten X.