New Hereford Bull/ epds

[Rich.]

Hey everyone, I've lurked around in the past and just became a member. I just bought a new Hereford bull to put on some brangus and angus cows. I've never owned a registered bull before and i received his epds and not sure what they mean or what to look for in them. Any insight on epds would be helpful.

 

[wbvs58]

I don't know much about Hereford EPD's, especially American ones but if you go to the American Hereford association on line and put in his registration number you should get a more detailed version of his EPD's. What I would be looking for is his ranking %age for each of those values, eg if it says WW 54 and 1% that would mean he is in the top 1% for weaning weight, 90% would be the bottom 10% for WW.
He looks like a nice bull and should do well for you. Welcome to CT.

Ken

 

[Warren Allison]

Hey everyone, I've lurked around in the past and just became a member. I just bought a new Hereford bull to put on some brangus and angus cows. I've never owned a registered bull before and i received his epds and not sure what they mean or what to look for in them. Any insight on epds would be helpful.

Welcome to the CT forums! Please go back into your profile and put in your location.

 

[StrojanHerefords]

I don't use EPDs because I haven't got an explanation of how they can make a fair and accurate comparison between my cattle in California and your bull in Texas with our different systems. I have a good friend who runs several hundred Hereford cows. He tells me that the EPDs have gone up but the weaning weights stay the same.

 

[coachg]

Welcome to the forum from NE Alabama. Some folks live and die by epds. On a young bull they are a prediction, not what he is doing . In my herd I think birth weight and weaning weights are my two main considerations. Others look at milk and docility. I'm not familiar with Hereford epds but each breed is a little different on the interpretation.

 

[Ky hills]

I'm not very familiar with Hereford EPD's as far as the numbers themselves. Generally speaking higher weaning weight (WW), and yearling weight (YW) are more desirable. Birthweight (BW) is generally desired to lower, the tricky part to get the hang of is that calving ease (CE) or calving ease direct (CED) depending on how different breeds word it is that the higher that number the better.
Like has been said milk (MM) is more or less a preference, some people want a higher milk number and some want more of a breed average number.
You can do an internet search to find breed averages and percentage ranking placements of EPD's as well to see how your bull's EPD's compare
EPD's are meant to be a tool to help in selection.
In my opinion, they are overrated, especially in terms of young animals that have lower accuracy percentages.
To me EPD's are more relevant in a scenario like choosing and comparing proven AI sires that have higher EPD accuracies,

 

[TCRanch]

Welcome to CT!

My bulls are registered Angus, so can't help you with Hereford EPD's. But IMO, EPD's are a nice tool to help improve your herd. I focus on CE and CEM on my heifer bulls (not BW!), WW & YW on terminal bulls, docility on all of them. All the other EPD's? Don't forget the dam! That cow is the root of your progeny. The heifers I retain are all based on the lineage of their dam (or grand dam).

 

[rocket2222]

Here's a chart of your bulls epd's the way the Hereford Assoc. has this set up is in theory you want the line for each trait to be as far over to the right as possible to be considered good.

 

[Rich.]

I don't know much about Hereford EPD's, especially American ones but if you go to the American Hereford association on line and put in his registration number you should get a more detailed version of his EPD's. What I would be looking for is his ranking %age for each of those values, eg if it says WW 54 and 1% that would mean he is in the top 1% for weaning weight, 90% would be the bottom 10% for WW.
He looks like a nice bull and should do well for you. Welcome to CT.

Ken

Thanks that's helpful. I thought he was the best looking bull in the bunch but thinking back,I should probably have done a bit more research.

 

[Rich.]

Welcome to the forum from NE Alabama. Some folks live and die by epds. On a young bull they are a prediction, not what he is doing . In my herd I think birth weight and weaning weights are my two main considerations. Others look at milk and docility. I'm not familiar with Hereford epds but each breed is a little different on the interpretation.

Good deal, thanks.

 

[Rich.]

I don't use EPDs because I haven't got an explanation of how they can make a fair and accurate comparison between my cattle in California and your bull in Texas with our different systems. I have a good friend who runs several hundred Hereford cows. He tells me that the EPDs have gone up but the weaning weights stay the same.

That's interesting.

 

[Rich.]

I'm not very familiar with Hereford EPD's as far as the numbers themselves. Generally speaking higher weaning weight (WW), and yearling weight (YW) are more desirable. Birthweight (BW) is generally desired to lower, the tricky part to get the hang of is that calving ease (CE) or calving ease direct (CED) depending on how different breeds word it is that the higher that number the better.
Like has been said milk (MM) is more or less a preference, some people want a higher milk number and some want more of a breed average number.
You can do an internet search to find breed averages and percentage ranking placements of EPD's as well to see how your bull's EPD's compare
EPD's are meant to be a tool to help in selection.
In my opinion, they are overrated, especially in terms of young animals that have lower accuracy percentages.
To me EPD's are more relevant in a scenario like choosing and comparing proven AI sires that have higher EPD accuracies

That's helpful. I did see that there is an accuracy percentage but I don't know enough to make sense of EPDs.

 

[Rich.]

Welcome to CT!

My bulls are registered Angus, so can't help you with Hereford EPD's. But IMO, EPD's are a nice tool to help improve your herd. I focus on CE and CEM on my heifer bulls (not BW!), WW & YW on terminal bulls, docility on all of them. All the other EPD's? Don't forget the dam! That cow is the root of your progeny. The heifers I retain are all based on the lineage of their dam (or grand dam).

That makes sense. None of my cows are registered but I do have a few cows that I always try to keep heifers out of because no matter what she was bred to she always seemed to throw nice calves.

 

[Rich.]

Here's a chart of your bulls epd's the way the Hereford Assoc. has this set up is in theory you want the line for each trait to be as far over to the right as possible to be considered good.
View attachment 46442

Thanks, I tried to find this earlier but couldn't seem to figure it out. If I understand this correctly he would be ok for heifers but his calves won't wean the heaviest.

 

[HatCreekCattleco]

On hereford epd's, I've had far better luck telling the breeder what I'm looking for and letting him show me what I have to choose from. I have an old bull now that according to epd he should be a cow killer. The breeder told me no way, and he was right. I don't know how many heifers we've bred him to and never pulled a calf.

 

[Brute 23]

Thanks that's helpful. I thought he was the best looking bull in the bunch but thinking back,I should probably have done a bit more research.

I think you did good for what you are doing. There is always a bigger better bull but it comes at a cost. He has some good traits and looks to be easy calving. I will take an easy calving bull that gets me a calf on the ground every year over a big growthy bull that could cause calving issues.

Bulls only last so many years and it will be time for a new one so you get to do it all over again in 3 or 4 years.

 

[simme]

Here's a chart of your bulls epd's the way the Hereford Assoc. has this set up is in theory you want the line for each trait to be as far over to the right as possible to be considered good.
View attachment 46442

I agree that epd's are often presented that way (more is better), but I think there is a danger there that leads to "chasing numbers".

More is not always better for everyone. I think it is better to view/use the numbers based on what is needed for your cattle and conditions. If you are buying a tractor, is more horsepower always better? Depends on what you are using it for. Raking hay or doing deep tillage? Buying a new house? What size? Mega size might seem good at first glance, but comes at a cost to buy and maintain.

Look at the extreme right side of the chart on each trait and think about the implications for your herd and management. Most people don't need a bull that produces 40# birth weights. A bull with extreme WW and YH - who wouldn't want that? But they don't grow from just air and water. Extreme growth probably requires a higher level of nutrition. Milk - probably don't need a beef cow that milks like a dairy cow. Those dairy cows eat a LOT and don't last long.

Think about the rest of the traits. Ribeye area - is there a big market for 19 inch ribeyes? Backfat, marbling and the rest - is more always better.

Keep in mind that there are relationships between all the traits. Look at the extreme right side of that chart and visualize what an animal would look like that hit the 1% level on ALL of those traits. Is it even possible and what would that look like and would it be sustainable/profitable?

More is not necessarily better. Same as the left side of the chart. That probably won't work well either.

 

[SPH]

Congrats on your purchase. Here's a link to his online registration where you can click around and find all kinds of stuff on the background of your bull and all of the data there is updated regularly as new data is reported to the association and added to calculations and reports.

https://myherd.org/web/USHF/Animal/Enquiry?key=%2BfB9%2BAPbHV9eQTe6dqyxcA%3D%3D

The nice thing about MyHerd is you can go into the pedigree and click on links of the animals further back in his pedigree to get a sense of what kind of genetics he's from. For instance if I go into his dam's progeny tab you can see all the calves she has had and she did not have one in 2021 for some reason. My guess is looking at the birth dates of the calves they maybe moved her from a fall calver to a spring calver so she had a longer downtime between her 2nd and 3rd calf possibly switching her to a different calving season. Also under the details tabs there is a link to the performance pedigree where if the breeder turns in weights and any other measurable traits the association collects it shows up in the progeny numbers at the bottom. His dam has weaned 5 calves at a 100 ratio which means her calves have been on average the middle of their contemporary group. Anything above 100 and they are in the upper half of the group under 100 then the bottom half. She's had 2 calves with carcass scans with a 104.5 Ribeye ratio which is good to see.

Back to your bull, under the details tab he's tested free of genetic defects, that is something I like to see anyone selling purebred bulls to be DNA testing them. Under his performance pedigree he was a 94 ratio at weaning and 100 at yearling, 4.9 frame for yearling height 37.7 scrotal and 100 rations for carcass scan data. Hard to tell what that means without knowing how many animals were part of the groups of data that were turned in, could be just a few head or many. He has good Calving Ease and BW epds with some decent accuracy numbers for an unproven bull which means between the data and DNA collected on him and animals within his pedigree there is a higher level of confidence in accuracy of that EPD number.

EPDs are just 1 tool of selection. Even within our own herd I can show you a cow with lower EPDs that consistently weans some of our best calves and we've had some with impressive EPD numbers that did not pan out too. They still need to pass the eye test with phenotype and structural soundness and still need to perform with the calves they raise. If you are happy with your purchase than that is all that really matters, don't let a bunch of keyboard warriors try to tell you otherwise. What works in 1 guy's program may not work in another's.