Making Lemonade!

[HerefordSire]

http://ranchers.net/forum/about33235.html

I think many of those folks are Angus breeders. Care to comment on their criteria for selecting bulls and the role EPDs play in their decisions, HS?

George...the root level dicussion of the ranchers and breeders appears to be generally the same. Some don't believe probabilities, some do completely, and some partially. Instead of looking at an "in the trenches point of view", let's look at who the current leaders are and how they got there. Let's take Lents, Felton, Latimer, Cooper, Holden, Star Lake, etc. and see who has made the most progress in the least amount of time. What did they do different than the people conversing in your posted link?

 

[SRBeef]

Jim, I've never said that EPDs shouldn't be looked at and given some degree of consideration, even in unproven yearling bulls. What bothers me is seeing people putting their primary consideration or ONLY consideration in EPDs and never looking below the surface or considering other important traits. Also, many breeders use EPDs in their promotions and sale catalogs, yet they never make the accuracies available as well.

If, by engaging in this discussion, I've been able to get you and others to better recognize the "unreliability" of the EPDs in unproven Hereford bulls, I've achieved my goal.

I think the AHA website has their database format backward. When you look an animal up, you ought to see the accuracies FIRST, then have to click on a link to see the EPDs. Because the accuracies are the most important numbers, by far.

George

I couldn't agree more about there being a need to combine both what you see and the EPD's.

On accuracies: Won't all yearling bulls have low accuracy on their EPD's since they have no progeny? Or is there something in some pedigrees that can give a yearling bull a higher EPD accuracy than another yearling bull?

 

[Brandonm22]

On accuracies: Won't all yearling bulls have low accuracy on their EPD's since they have no progeny? Or is there something in some pedigrees that can give a yearling bull a higher EPD accuracy than another yearling bull?

All yearling bulls have low accuracy because the EPDs are based on their pedigrees; BUT some come from highly proven parents and grandparents and others come from unproven parents and grandparents. You can learn a lot about the number by going to the AHA website and looking at the last three generations on an animal and looking up how many records that AHA has on those pedigrees. I would always rather have a good EPD value than not; but sometimes the accuracy can be so low that the numbers might as well not be there.

 

[1848]

Way too early to to label him or even predict him to be a calving ease sire. Based on his genetics I would guess his BW EPD to increase, and the BW of his calves to be High-Moderate at least.

 

[HerefordSire]

Before I bring the laser guided heat seeking artillery out in future posts, the published Easy Deal progeny are spring calves of 2008. I am not sure when the advertisement was first released publicly, but the owners and breeder(s) probably have another batch of calves that already hit the ground. Theoretically, other breeders might be contributing heavily for all we know. Could there be another 100 calves hitting the gound this spring having an average birth weight ratio of 90%? Sure there could be, especially since this bull has won at shows. Therefore, I believe your judgement is premature in this case George, and the advertiser should be given the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, such that bull Easy Deal could really be a heifer bull based upon evidence of 2009 calves hitting the pavement.

This looks like an example of knowing new unpublished information about calving ease before advertising.

Easy Deal is long necked, smooth shouldered and sound with an exceptional muscle pattern and base width. His dam C MS Pure Gold 2003 is becoming one of the most respected cows in recent Hereford times. His first heifer calf out of a D & M 53 H Kreedence 003K daughter topped the Reno Nugget Sale in December 2008 and has gone to Nebraska, where she'll continue to be shown. Easy Deal's 2009 calves in our herd are impressive and we're getting good reports from semen purchasers across the country of easy calving, low birthweight calves that are vigorous, thick and pleasing to the eye. Our Canadian partners, ANL Herefords and Haroldsons Herefords, purchased over 700 straws of semen in 2008 and we're looking forward to seeing a large number of calves there.

http://www.hutchensherefords.com/sires.php

 

[Herefords.US]

Well, the Spring 2010 EPDs are out - and after looking at the advertisement on the AHA web-site that has advertised "Easy Deal" as a +1.0 BW sire for six months+, we find that his BW EPD has moved to +1.8. At least now there is enough data getting it to an accuracy level where it shouldn't move a lot more. And similar significant shifts in BW EPDs were also noted in Easy Deal's full brothers discussed in this thread.

George