Making Lemonade!

[HerefordSire]

I think the masses want to believe in the system more than they do. An excuse I read all the time is accuracy and age of animal or quantities. Any excuse will do though. Same result. Fill in the blank. I believe it is too abstract for the masses to grasp

I think the system is relatively easy for "the masses to grasp" (ie the bull buying public). +50 weaning wt beats a +40 and -.1 birth weight beats a +4. The folks that don't "WANT" to grasp the system are the folks who have a lot of money, time, and emotion invested in a cow herd whose EPDs are breed average or worse.

When the whole usefullness of breeding by unproven numbers shows its real value is when you have a group of substandard calves with a great set of EPDs.

I'd take a great crop of calves with average numbers anyday over a calf crop with great numbers and average quality, but to each his own.

The real world cattlemen that buys our bulls don't complain over low or average EPDs of hereford bulls they bought, they complain about high BW (they also don't try and justify the high BW by saying the growth is great, they just complain about the high BW), they complain about a lack of bone, lack of muscle and poor udders and eyes that causes problems. They constantly complain that the industry don't give them the type of cattle they want and they have to look elsewhere without ever saying "atleast the hereford bulls that they buy nowadays has got much better unproven EPDs today than it had 20 years ago."

We as breeders must wake up and smell the coffee!

I think the question that should be answered, more sooner than later, is the definition of "substandard with a great set of EPDs" which is relative. The great EPDs may mean, even though a specific calf is a runt, for example, there is a higher mathematical probability that future generations coming out of a runt, will reverse such that a runt's offspring may not be a runt but the best calf in the herd. If this were not possible, then the EPD system is not to be used at all.

 

[OLF]

Jerry Huth's cattle have become quite popular. ABS carries semen for 4 of his sires: Huth Enhancer 2D (a Sire Of Distinction), Huth Lagrand Class Act S037, Huth 434 Magnum S026, and Huth Progression S019. Accelerated Genetics carries Huth Prospector K085 (a breed trait leader for 8 traits) and Huth Oak P017. (page 46 of the 2009 Hereford AI book). I thought he dispersed several years ago; but I guess I was wrong.

Huth dispersed his mature cows (3 years and older) and their calves. He kept all of his 2 year old heifers and his herd sires. I bought three cows at the dispersal. Two have been great producers and have made DOD.

 

[whitecow]

One more examle as food for thought. I have 9 clones of a Charolais cow (M6 MS E46'S DUKE 248 PET). She has about 90 registered progeny. Her BW EPD is 2.9 with an acc of .52. The BW EPDs of the clones range from 0.6 to 5.9. Presumeably the differences in EPDs of the clones is based on their own birth weights which should be irrelevant. They all have exactly the same genetic potential as the original. Thoeretically, all of the clones and the original cow should have the same EPDs and all of their progeny data could be used together to improve the accuracy of the EPDs.

 

[HerefordSire]

---------
Step #5
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H Top Hat 604 ET Progeny

 

[HerefordSire]

It is unlikely but it is also quite possible that there IS that much variation between the three flush brothers. There have been examples in the past where highly proven sibs had opposite strengths and weaknesses. We just don't know yet......why a highly accuracy set of EPDs is always a better predicter than a low accuracy set.

Brandonm22....the variance of BW EPDs obviously reflect actual data and they vary for a real reason. It could be foolish to ignore these variances (use the high BW bull expecting a lower BW EPD) and it could also be foolish not to take advantage of them (not using the low BW bull Easy Deal).

 

[HerefordSire]

Hey, if ya add all them relatives up on the dams side, that's 87.5% of the animal you don't have a clue about. :roll: ;-)

I don't need to know anything about a cow IF her son in the pedigree sired over a thousand progeny we have records on. The 99% accuracy we have on him completely cancels out the 45-55% accuracy we have on her. I am at a loss to figure out why this concept is so hard for you to grasp. Lagrand Reload is by Wideload and a Keynote daughter. I know an awful lot about Reload just from knowing those two sires. EVERY cow in the pedigree has a sire. Do the math. Over ten generations of breeding 99.85% of the genetics in a herd are the last ten sires you selected (why the commerical guys are at the mercy of his seedstock supplier(s)). I am not saying that you can not make progress by selecting on the female end; but in an EPD system the cumulated sire selection is where we build the accuracy into the system and where we can make the most genetic progress.

Brandonm22....so in this specific ET flushmate bull example, the EPD numbers of the most recent sires of each generation on the maternal side (paternal side is constant), most certainly explain the reason why they vary as much in the intial years (more emphasis is placed on the most recent materal grandsire). Without looking at the BW EPD numbers, we can estimate for say five generations of bull EPDs on the maternal side, and justify the wide variance in EPD BD of the three ET calves. For example, Easy Deal ET has a 1.0 BW EPD as the result of his calves birthweight percentage, and then to a lesser extent, the most recent maternal sire BW EPD numbers and ratios, etc.

 

[HerefordSire]

---------
Step #6
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For each of the three ET bulls, the non-ET progeny BW EPD accuracy ranges from .33 to .35. Therefore these values are not significant and can be canceled out for our purposes.

 

[KNERSIE]

I think the question that should be answered, more sooner than later, is the definition of "substandard with a great set of EPDs" which is relative. The great EPDs may mean, even though a specific calf is a runt, for example, there is a higher mathematical probability that future generations coming out of a runt, will reverse such that a runt's offspring may not be a runt but the best calf in the herd. If this were not possible, then the EPD system is not to be used at all.

Like begets like.

Go ahead and try and breed from the runts if you like, if your contemporary groups are chosen "wisely" you may even achieve your goal of raising the EPDs of such offspring, but don't be surprised if they never achieve acceptance from the bullbuyers or ever quite reach the performance heights you hoped for. (and no, I am not going to tell you how to choose this contemporary groups for the best effect as I am not going to help anyone cheat the system, but do take note that the system can be cheated)

Dan, the sooner you learn more about phenotype and why certain things are important and under which conditions certain traits aren't even negotiable, the less time you'll waste in getting to your goal of a top herd. Quality should always be the no 1 priority if longevity in this business is your goal. Take some time and look through Reed's online directory, there you'll find many bulls that had great numbers at the time. With time and more proven progeny most never quite reached the heights expected of them. Every one of them was "just what the industry needed at the time" if you look at those photos now all you'll see is bad phenotype and it will become clear that those bulls never made a lasting impression.

The great performance bulls of the 70's and 80's that made a lasting impression all had acceptable phenotype. It may not be close to ideal, but atleast acceptable.

I mean this as nicely as possible, but you and Brandonm22 aren't busy with groundbreaking work, many more before you had the same beliefs and goals and the same "understanding" of breeding values. Very few of those that put performance before quality survived long enough in the business to tell the tale.

Take from this discussion what you want, but I do suggest reading everything very carefully and only read what the rest of us "fools, non-believers, non-graspers" or whatever you want to call us had written and not what you believed at the time we had written.

On the positive side I think you might atleast have one potential buyer ;-)

 

[HerefordSire]

There's a bit of hockey anology here-I have a prospect come up his parents are athletes-his grandparents were athletic too-his Dad actually played some pro hockey. The kid has scored at will in the league he's called up from. I get him and he can't find the net -won't go in the corners and slumps he can't take the rougher going. he's just like a young unproven bull with great numbers-you put him on your team because of great potential but you have to cut him because he can't play in the conditions that your team (cowherd) works in. As for Dams becoming irrelevant EPD wise I suppose but they are a major deal when it comes to the EPD's of practicality-the ones we cull for soundness, disposition etc.

Very good analagy NR. In my experience, I have noticed talent or performance jumps generations (outliers). For example, Pete Rose's son may not be a baseball star, but Junior's son likely has a higher probability to be a star depending upon the additional female. This works allot of the time. There are exceptions like Ken Griffey and his father which were stars back to back. So to find the next Mohamed Ali, for example, I would look at his daughter's sons and recruit him, not the son of Mohammed Ali if he had one, because the odds are with me.

 

[Brandonm22]

Dan, the sooner you learn more about phenotype and why certain things are important and under which conditions certain traits aren't even negotiable, the less time you'll waste in getting to your goal of a top herd. Quality should always be the no 1 priority if longevity in this business is your goal. Take some time and look through Reed's online directory, there you'll find many bulls that had great numbers at the time. With time and more proven progeny most never quite reached the heights expected of them. Every one of them was "just what the industry needed at the time" if you look at those photos now all you'll see is bad phenotype and it will become clear that those bulls never made a lasting impression.

The great performance bulls of the 70's and 80's that made a lasting impression all had acceptable phenotype. It may not be close to ideal, but atleast acceptable.

I mean this as nicely as possible, but you and Brandonm22 aren't busy with groundbreaking work, many more before you had the same beliefs and goals and the same "understanding" of breeding values. Very few of those that put performance before quality survived long enough in the business to tell the tale.

Take from this discussion what you want, but I do suggest reading everything very carefully and only read what the rest of us "fools, non-believers, non-graspers" or whatever you want to call us had written and not what you believed at the time we had written.

On the positive side I think you might atleast have one potential buyer ;-)

I am not suggesting NOT looking at phenotype. If a bull is flawed.....bad temperment, lite muscled, pallet headed, flat ribbed, poor tracking, bad feet & legs, or he is the runt in the herd he doesn't need to be promoted as a registered sire. Depending on the degree of his problem he probably shouldn't be sold for $1500 as a commercial bull either even if he was a $2000 ET calf or a $7000 clone. BUT good phenotype without documentable and repeatable performance is just as big (or BIGGER) flaw than a pinched heart girth, cow hocks, open shoulders, a feminine head, or poor eye set.

But let's be completely honest here, Angus has emphasized performance much more than Hereford has. They have more EPDs, they have more accuracy in the EPDs, they have more cattle with high performance EPDs, they were quicker to promote carcass EPDs, they have promoted performance and EPDs where many Hereford breeders have sat on their hands. We still don't have a $EN or maintenance energy EPD even though people like Pharo, Duff, and Ohlde have carved out a nice niche for themselves promoting Angus cattle that are documented strong for that trait.......a lot of the old Victor herds could PROBABLY do the same if the breed would ever give them the tools. Since ~1984, about 85% of the American Hereford herd has gone commercial (and usually black) or went straight to MacDonalds and most of them were owned by linebreeders, the phenotype freaks, and old dudes who couldn't tell you the difference between an EPD and an ERA. The commercial cattlemen have demanded low birth weight cattle that grow with a minimum of trouble and they want all of that documented with a number attached to it. If anything it seems like we have MORE highly promoted sires in the bottom 20% of the breed for birth weight NOW than we did 20 years ago. I am not knocking anybody here; but I am listening to the same old tired arguments about the EPD system that we have heard in Hereford circles for 20+++ years........'you can rig the system', 'my best cow doesn't have my best EPDs', 'I prefer to use actual numbers', 'EPDs are only averages, 'I want a rifle, instead of a shotgun', 'the EPDs are for somebody else's environment;, 'His EPDs will go up', 'EPDs can't predict what the calf will perform like if I breed bossie to bad boy billy bull'...... A lot of that is even TRUE.

If you can design a BETTER statistical model go ahead and do it Harley. Until you or somebody else does it the EPD system is the best, most scientific, and most widely understood and accepted way to achieve documentable, repeatable performance and genetic improvement in the history of cattle breeding.

I don't claim to be a master cattle breeder or the greatest mind of our times and nothing I have said here has not been said before by much smarter, more educated, more experienced persons than myself. All we are saying is that the breed needs to listen to the bull buying public and perhaps emulate what is working instead of sending 90% of our bull crop to the stockyards, registering less heifers each and every year, while watching Angus register another 3 or 400,000 cows a year.

 

[KNERSIE]

If you can design a BETTER statistical model go ahead and do it Harley. Until you or somebody else does it the EPD system is the best, most scientific, and most widely understood and accepted way to achieve documentable, repeatable performance and genetic improvement in the history of cattle breeding.

The biggest flaw in the system lies in the application and because people forgot why the system was developed. The system was developed to give an indication of what can be expected from the animal, the system wasn't designed to tell which animal is best as its widely perceived now.

All we are saying is that the breed needs to listen to the bull buying public

My words exactly.... AND start giving them the product they want instead of chasing numbers while they are neglected the real issues that is losing marketshare for the breed.

and perhaps emulate what is working instead of sending 90% of our bull crop to the stockyards, registering less heifers each and every year

The hereford breed has been chasing performance to try and match the Continentals since the late 1960's, growth has improved drastically, the EPDs today are alot better than those of 20 years ago and yet the breed is losing marketshare, while the handfull of breeders breeding "old style" herefords' bull pens are sold out.

All that being said I think the breed as a whole is much better than 10 years ago, but we are a long ways from regaining the traditional strengths of the breed.

 

[HerefordSire]

I think the question that should be answered, more sooner than later, is the definition of "substandard with a great set of EPDs" which is relative. The great EPDs may mean, even though a specific calf is a runt, for example, there is a higher mathematical probability that future generations coming out of a runt, will reverse such that a runt's offspring may not be a runt but the best calf in the herd. If this were not possible, then the EPD system is not to be used at all.

Like begets like.

KNERSIE...I truncated your text for emphasis.

Any look back at BIF's 40 year history has to be
about three things – People, Leadership, and
Technology. It is really not about cattle – cattle
don't have ideas and cattle don't have emotions.
Cattle don't have need to make change…but
people do.

Improvement of cattle and other livestock
certainly predates Robert Bakewell (1725-1795)
who first suggested that "Like begets like." At
Bakewell's time, the mode of inheritance was
unknown. Gregor Mendel did some fascinating
work with peas and other vegetables in the
monastery garden that proved that genes
expressed themselves in a predictable and
mathematical way, so discovered the principals
of genetics in 1866, since known as Mendelian
segregation. His work was rediscovered about
1900. Then in early to mid- twentieth century
Sewell Wright and R.A. Fisher brought modern
livestock breeding, from a statistical standpoint,
into the area of science. Wright's principals of
genetic relationships among relatives in one of
the essential principals of our modern EPD
(Expected Progeny Difference) calculations.

Long before we turned to science, the method of
evaluating animals became the "eye of the
master" visual appraisal along with a published
pedigree, and it stayed that way into the latter
third of the 20th century.
.
.
.
.
A number of sticky problems came along and
were dealt with such as:
• Deciding to express EPD accuracy in
terms of a percentile rather than possible
change
• Deciding to formulate a frame score
chart based on hip height.
• Deciding not to take over Ideal Beef
Memo and print a B.I.F. paper
• Deciding to recommend procedures for
the use of ultrasound for the evaluation
of carcass traits, including the regimen
for training technicians.
• Deciding not to recommend procedures
for grading based on visual appraisal.
• Trying unsuccessfully to preserve and
strengthen state BCIA's
.
.
.
.
Is the work all done? Surely not! Population
genetics has been the name of the game and will
probably continue to be. The basis of EPD's is
the individual record as a deviation from the
mean of a true contemporary group. Now that
the bovine genome has been sequenced (at least
in part), how will data used in selection
programs look 10 or 20 years form now? Stay
tuned and stay involved!

http://www.bifconference.com/bif2007/Sy ... k_Back.pdf

Here is another document....

A fellow in England eventually put into writing the concept of "like begets like," and launched the documented art and science of animal breeding. In other words, if I mate big bulls to big cows, I will get big cattle. If I mate small bulls to small cows, I will get small cattle. What was even more exciting, you could mate big bulls to small cows and get medium-sized cattle. The "Bakewell" concept of cattle breeding or livestock improvement has been around for more than a century and is still prevalent in the beef business today.

There are still many bulls purchased today on the concept that "like begets like." The concept is true and works. However, today, we actually know why "like begets like." This additional understanding began with Mendel and his peas. He noticed some where wrinkled and some weren't. What was even more important, Mendel selected only seven traits, and worked with each trait separately. He found that, yes, "like begets like," but not always.

For years, peas were round and smooth in Burke County, and peas were round and wrinkled in Divide County. This went on for years, and the champion pea of the Burke County Fair was always smooth and round. The champion pea at the Divide County Fair was always round and wrinkled. "Like begets like" and this was fine. Everyone was happy. Then one day, an ambitious sort from Burke County, was driving down Highway Five a little too fast, and as the road curved, Burke County peas spilled in Divide County.

The peas, knowing no better, germinated, flowered and gave to the bees a full load of smooth and round pea pollen, (the male) and the Divide County peas welcomed the bees loaded with fresh new Burke County pollen. The incident was soon forgotten. That year at the Divide County Fair, all the peas were still round and wrinkled and the champion pea was the roundest and most wrinkled pea anyone ever saw.

The seed was saved and with great pride, the seed was planted and, well, I'm sure most of you know by now, these beautiful round and wrinkled seeds produced not only round and wrinkled seeds, but round and smooth seeds as well.

Astonished, a new set of rules had to be drawn up for the fair (at a rather lengthy meeting), but more importantly residents found that, "like did not beget like." Thus the principles of genetic dominance were discovered, and forever more, what you see is not necessarily what you get.

Even more interesting, the round and smooth seeds that came from round and wrinkled parents, were rounder and smoother and larger than the round and smooth seeds from round and smooth parents.

Adapted to today's bull buying principles, yes, there is comfort in matching the general appearance of your cattle with the general appearance of the bull. However, the only way to know if he is round and wrinkled and can sire round and smooth is to have records.

http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/newsre ... beefta.htm

 

[KNERSIE]

Herefordsire, my like begets like comment was aimed at your breeding of runts with great EPDs, my understanding of genetics is very good, I also know that there is much more to it than simple Mendellian inheritance especially when it comes to the economic important traits.

I have a few more questions for you and Brandonm22, I'll start by asking a simple question and my next question will be decided by your answer if neccesary.

Lets start with one of the simplest profit indexes namely the Feedlot Profit index.

Tell me how the selection of a high FPI will affect your income as a cow calf producer? Let's make this a two fold question and you can answer me how this FPI is going to make more money for the feedlot. (just a hint the second question has an easier answer than the first)

 

[HerefordSire]

Herefordsire, my like begets like comment was aimed at your breeding of runts with great EPDs, my understanding of genetics is very good, I also know that there is much more to it than simple Mendellian inheritance especially when it comes to the economic important traits.

I have a few more questions for you and Brandonm22, I'll start by asking a simple question and my next question will be decided by your answer if neccesary.

Lets start with one of the simplest profit indexes namely the Feedlot Profit index.

Tell me how the selection of a high FPI will affect your income as a cow calf producer? Let's make this a two fold question and you can answer me how this FPI is going to make more money for the feedlot. (just a hint the second question has an easier answer than the first)

Click to enlarge if necessary. If you are referring to AHA data, please select a column. If you are selecting from a South African indice, let me know.

 

[KNERSIE]

Herefordsire, my like begets like comment was aimed at your breeding of runts with great EPDs, my understanding of genetics is very good, I also know that there is much more to it than simple Mendellian inheritance especially when it comes to the economic important traits.

I have a few more questions for you and Brandonm22, I'll start by asking a simple question and my next question will be decided by your answer if neccesary.

Lets start with one of the simplest profit indexes namely the Feedlot Profit index.

Tell me how the selection of a high FPI will affect your income as a cow calf producer? Let's make this a two fold question and you can answer me how this FPI is going to make more money for the feedlot. (just a hint the second question has an easier answer than the first)

Click to enlarge if necessary. If you are referring to AHA data, please select a column. If you are selecting from a South African indice, let me know.

Disregard my question as I am refering to a SA index and since you don't have the same index in the USA yet my question is pointless. I wanted to illustrate the theoretical correlation between traits and how it would affect the cow/calf producer, but we'll continue this when the AHA start using this index.

 

[SRBeef]

This is an interesting discussion of genetics.

However I see two important points/positions:

1) Phenotype (= visual evalauation) has been the most important criteria for judging bulls

2) EPD's will hopefully help predict those criteria which can not be seen visually.

In my case, as a bull buying customer, and one who is not able to physically be around my cattle most of the time during calving season, calving ease is my number 1 criteria.

Looking at many bull sale catalogs and websites recently, it does not seem like there is an visual/phenotype way to be able to compare the calving ease and likely birthweight of a bulls offspring. In some ways it appears to actually work in reverse - many of the bigger more muscular bull tend to have higher birthweight calves.

It would be nice to know that a bull CAN sire lower birthweight calves but ones who "catch up" with good ww and yw. And one who's daughters tend to be good milk producers/calve easily.

Yes you can probably raise bulls and know these after they have a couple years of calves on the ground but that is a little late for most of us.

One thing that I have learned about cattle is that EVERYTHING takes a lot of time. Developing a herd and a beef business just takes time. EPD's seem to be a way we can speed things up by selecting a bull with a higher PROBABILITY of being strong in the areas we need in our operation.

The Sandhill catalog (sale coming up) makes a point of the importance of EPD's and how they have collected data for many years. Jerry Huth's website also stresses the importance of EPD's (and the difficulty of breeding for almost conflicting goals like low bw and high ww simultaneously). Some catalogs barely mention EPD's. Some catalogs promote great photos and seem to boast about EPD's that are at best mediocre.

It seems to me we need to have BOTH visual/phenotype AND predictive tools/EPDs when evaluating cattle. We also need to encourage the careful collection and honest reporting of more EPD data in the Hereford breed. It is hard to see how the breed can evolve and show genuine improvement without both. jmho.

Jim

 

[HerefordSire]

I have witnessed too many way to manipulate EPD's . If you go back and read through the works of Dr Willham in his development of EPD's you will have a greater understanding. The EPD's are only as good as the data presented and only as good as the accuracy given. There are so many things that can manipulate birth weight that are environmental...too many ways to collect data that are not taken in to account...
I have one thing you all of you to think about...Take the runt out of a flush because he is a smaller frame size....feed him like you are feeding the larger framed bulls in the flush...what do you get? In my opinion from observations over the last 40 years....shorten them up in length, you raise the rea.... pick the runt and you raise the imf sooner..... pick smaller and smaller frames out of a cow family with historically larger frames you decrease the pelvic and increase the calving problems.....picking bull for herdsires with smaller frames then historically normal you are picking from the ones that are from the group that are less then normal...
What if one rancher uses the pencil to collect birth, weaning and yearling weights? Say he is 10# light on actual birth....50# heavy on weaning and #150 heavy on yearling. What does that do to EPD's?

Doug Hoff once made a statement in his sale catalog about EPD's.... I am looking for it so I can post it here.

giftedcowboy...can you point me to the works (online documents) of Dr. Willham? Also, would it be a fair statement that any breeder manipulating raw performance data is subject to reputaton damage and or a career change or specialty, since the cream always rises to the top?

Richard L. Willham
Emeritus Professor of Animal Science
C.F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor
Iowa State University
225 Kildee Hall
Ames, IA 50011-3150
Phone: 515-294-3533

http://www.ans.iastate.edu/faculty/inde ... d=rwillham
Email: [email protected]


The "Father" of Expected Progeny Differences

Willham devoted unmeasured amounts of time to research and development in genetic prediction methods and their eventual application in the beef industry during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Starting with Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) at the Litton Charolais Ranch in Missouri, moving on to EBVs in Angus, Hereford, and other breeds, Willham got breeders thinking about prediction of breeding value (what the breeder actually sells to the commercial producer) instead of simply basing selection solely on phenotype. Not only did Willham help develop the theory and genetic models, he also spent hours convincing industry leaders that sound scientific principles could be harnessed for genetic improvement of livestock, especially beef cattle.

Willham wrote the initial and subsequent versions of the Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) Guidelines on National Sire Evaluation. From within-herd EBV to National Sire Evaluation and EPDs, to the current National Genetic Evaluation, Willham kept the research fires burning, met repeatedly with industry organizations, and gave untold numbers of presentations to keep the industry on the path to improvement. He coined the term Expected Progeny Difference (EPD).

http://www.ans.iastate.edu/faculty/rwil ... honor.html

 

[HerefordSire]

I'm not very bright I guess. :lol: :lol: I see now though, when you have that much data collected on a bull, his dam basically becomes irrelevant. I guess the cows that you apparently don't care about, that the bull bred, who contributed 50% of their dna and make up 50% of the data that made the 99% accurate epd on that bull will, in time, become irrelevant too. Oh, that's right, I'll check behind the barn, make sure at least a couple of them have four legs and a tail, hey, there all 2 year olds who have been flushed, no udder problems there then. 8) Well, I gotta go. See ya.

Well think of it this way. Lets say you have a big tall set of Hereford heifers. I live next door and I have Lowline Angus but I can't keep my Lowline Angus bulls up. He breeds all your heifers before you can A.I. For some reason you don't kill me or the bull and neither one of us can afford to build a decent fence. You make the best of the situation and you keep only the 25% of the resulting baldie heifers with the most length, height, and weight. Lowline Angus bull attacks AGAIN. Now you got to select heifers out of 75% A/25% H heifers. You keep back the 25% of the resulting heifers with the most frame and the most white. Lowline Angus bull jumps in there again and does his worst. You get a heifer crop that is 87.5% Lowline Angus. You select the biggest brawniest heifers. Those Lowlines do it again. Now your heifers are 93++ % Lowline Angus. Their calves will be 97% Lowline Angus. You can keep selecting females all you want to; but the sire selection is ultimately deciding what your herd is. I don't need to know anything about your individual cows or your female selection to know that if a frame 0 Lowline Angus appears in the pedigree the last 6 times that you have a herd of frame 0 Lowline Angus cows. Likewise if I stack proven sire on top of proven sire on top of proven sire on top of proven sire it ultimately doesn't matter all that much whether my foundation females were $100,000 donor cows or throw away $400 stockyard heifers; their descendants are going to perform much the same way because of the sires used in that program over time.

The problem with your logic in using proven Hereford sires is that, with them, you're thinking that you have a rifle, when you've really got a shotgun. And stacking a "shotgun distribution" on top of another, then atop another STILL nets you a really wide distribution of probability, yet I believe the derived EPDs also assume that you're using a rifle! So, until you have a good bit of progeny data from the actual animal produced, you still have no real idea where you are within that broad shotgun pattern. You may be closer to your target than just shooting in the dark, but you may still be quite a way from where you'd like to be. Eventually, you should be able to hit the bulls eye, but because some traits are antagonistic, you may have to make a number of adjustments to get there - taking a step backward in some traits to improve others.

To me, the obvious way of tightening the "pattern" is using linebreeding, then selection via visual appraisal and analysis of individual data, rather than using the derivatives (EPDs) and THEIR derivatives (the $ indexes).

The bottom line is, in cattle breeding, we're talking about a lifetime of work. Most people just want a bull to breed their cows and they are TOO busy to do all the research (or TOO lazy) and they want a simple set of numbers to tell them which bull to pick. The problem is the set of numbers that they've come up with (EPDs) aren't reliable without significant progeny data input. But if you fool enough people into believing that they are the "gospel", you've got a tremendous promotional tool at your disposal! And that's why we've got a bunch of functionally unsound bulls with GREAT EPDs in the pastures and people looking at their cattle and wishing they had cows more like what grandpa had. Grandpa was probably a cattle breeder, not a numbers cruncher.

George

Good points George. In your example of the three ET bulls, there would be a difference in the distribution of probabilities dependent upon whether the string of maternal sires used were linebred or not. I need to find out if this is numerically compensated for. If it were compensated for, then this would partially explain the difference in BW EPD numbers of the three ET bulls.

 

[HerefordSire]

Dr. Willham,

I am involved on the novice end of a conversation with geniuses on the Cattle Today message boards located here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=55609&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

I was wondering if American Hereford Association EPD numbers take into consideration the line breeding or heterosis of sires, or any animal, for that matter. I believe the base numbers are accounted for automatically, but I am unsure if an additional weighting is applied in the formulae to account for the narrowing of the distribution.

 

[HerefordSire]

One more examle as food for thought. I have 9 clones of a Charolais cow (M6 MS E46'S DUKE 248 PET). She has about 90 registered progeny. Her BW EPD is 2.9 with an acc of .52. The BW EPDs of the clones range from 0.6 to 5.9. Presumeably the differences in EPDs of the clones is based on their own birth weights which should be irrelevant. They all have exactly the same genetic potential as the original. Thoeretically, all of the clones and the original cow should have the same EPDs and all of their progeny data could be used together to improve the accuracy of the EPDs.

I take it the Charlois Association defines a rule regarding clone BW EPD that consider the actual birth weight of a clone in the calculations? If so, is this application different than an ET calf for the same Association?