Pelvic Size

[greenwillowherefords]

Here is a topic to create a little discussion. This is a good one for Txag and Frankie etc. A friend who once worked for Genex, Co-op, and raises Maine-Anjou, told me he once worked for an Angus ranch. (This could be true of any breed under the same circumstances, so don't think I'm trashing Angus.) They bred for low birthweight religiously until they were pulling sixty-some pound calves because they failed to notice a decrease in pelvic measurements on their cows. Do you experts agree with this story or not? I had a first-calf heifer that went overdue 2 weeks and had a 95 pound bull calf unassisted, so I know that much depends on the cow as well as the bull.

 

[dun]

Many breeds have EPDs not only for the bulls calving ease, but also his daughters calving ease. If you look at the numbers you will see that some bulls have low BW and poor calving ease, moderatly high BW and good calving ease, some bulls no matter their own calving ease and BW will throw hard calving daughters and others will throw easy calving daughters. It isn't all pelvis, bu that has a lot to do with it.
For those that don't believe in EPDs, we all know of bulls that fit the same criteria from our own experiences.

dun