maternal EPD profile?

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goodbeef

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If you breed for, or would breed for maternal value, (Good Cows), what epd would you start at, and where would you go from thre? Just wanted to get a few thoughts and opinions on who thinks what traits and epd's are important on making a good cow. If we are looking at an angus profile, I look at $EN first and go from their. Some probably will strongly disagree. If you look at a semen catalog, you can sort out bulls pretty fast if you want them to have a positive $EN, and maybe that's why I start their? That and who wants an ineffeciant, 6.5 frame cow, that has a 30+ milk epd? That is what most of those bulls with a big negative $EN are. I'm sure some do.Where do you start?
 
Doc says selecting for maternal traits causes funnel butt, I dunno. Basically he says to not select for low birth weight, high calving ease, and high milk, I dunno.

GAR put out a newsletter recently that says not to select against a negative $EN, or rather one of their customers confirmed their belief I think, I dunno.

I have a range that I like to select from, but I will refrain from posting that, in fear of being ridiculed. :lol2:
 
goodbeef":1ykhfa5k said:
If you breed for, or would breed for maternal value, (Good Cows), what epd would you start at, and where would you go from thre? Just wanted to get a few thoughts and opinions on who thinks what traits and epd's are important on making a good cow. If we are looking at an angus profile, I look at $EN first and go from their. Some probably will strongly disagree. If you look at a semen catalog, you can sort out bulls pretty fast if you want them to have a positive $EN, and maybe that's why I start their? That and who wants an ineffeciant, 6.5 frame cow, that has a 30+ milk epd? That is what most of those bulls with a big negative $EN are. I'm sure some do.Where do you start?

I think you might be overthinking your situation? The Angus breed is a maternal breed. Unless you just go crazy with the milk EPD (either way) or go for excess in any trait, I'd expect you to have good momma cows. Unless you're trying to "fix" a trait, go with good, but balanced, EPDs.

When we were buying cows, before we went to the sale, we'd look through the catalog at growth EPDs first, carcass next. The $EPDs pretty much fall in line with those. After we culled cows that didn't meet our criteria there, we'd go to pedigree. Experience counts there. We'll pay more for a pedigree that we're familar with than one full of younger, less proven bulls. Then at the sale comes the visual appraisal of what animals didn't get culled in those two cuts.
 
This question really come down to what kind of cow do you want. If you want a big cow with maximum milk, maximum growth, and maximum frame EPDs are extremely useful......just select the bull with the highest numbers of everything. If the primary purpose of purchasing a sire is to sire moderate framed easy keeping females, then I think everything with a negative $EN is eliminated from ANY consideration as the first step. 50% of the sires in the Angus breed have a $EN of +3.51 or higher. I would limit my search to bulls with that or better. You probably want to stay away from bulls in the top 25% of the breed for maternal weight (+50), maternal height (+.7), or maternal milk (+25) though the way they calculate the $EN number gets rid of a lot of those bulls. Really that is probably ALL the help you can get from the EPDs. High growth bulls often sire too big daughters; but there are a lot of bulls with moderate growth EPDs that aren't great cow makers. The only thing you can do is eyeball a lot of cows and stick with the lines that consistently produce the kinds of cows that get it done. Then you want to find an easy tracking, well muscled, strong topped, deep ribbed, easy fleshing, structurally sound, easy fleshing bull out of a really strong dam.
 
if you need some maternal EPDs, make one for longevity, how well the cow sticks near her calf in the first week, protective against predators, udder score, calving interval, and BCS on grass alone year round.

as far as the existing EPDs from AAA, they dont have any better clue about what's maternal than Frankie, the Angus automaton. $EN is useful but not maternal. cow size is a good indicator of upkeep requirements, but has nothing ot do with raising a calf. Milk is a growth trait. CEM might be a derivative of a maternal trait (CED).

show me a cow that calves with no problems, loves her calf and stays in good enough shape to wean one every year without an artificial environment and you have a maternal cow.
 
I don't think there is an epd that will give you strong maternal efficiency. To increase maternal efficiency, I select for age at first calving, calving interval, calves weaned, nursing index.
 
Frankie":ospsw7a4 said:
RD-Sam":ospsw7a4 said:
I wouldn't take that kind of abuse Frankie. :lol2:

Aw, I just consider the source. :lol:

it's good that you understand I mean these things in the most constructive way possible. ;-)

maybe I was a little too direct (I think I was having a bad day) and I encourage you to have an irreverant outburst directed to me in the coming days. :welcome:
 
Aero":39p2qstr said:
Frankie":39p2qstr said:
RD-Sam":39p2qstr said:
I wouldn't take that kind of abuse Frankie. :lol2:

Aw, I just consider the source. :lol:

it's good that you understand I mean these things in the most constructive way possible. ;-)

maybe I was a little too direct (I think I was having a bad day) and I encourage you to have an irreverant outburst directed to me in the coming days. :welcome:

I'll keep that in mind. :)
 
Thanks everyone for your comments. I wanted to put something out there that would get a few discussions. The beauty of the cattle industry is that you can go so many different directions. Unfortunetly that is probably our biggest obstical.
 

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