Picking a Bull?

[BryanM]

Does anyone else have so much trouble picking a bull for ai? My goal is to to make replacement red angus heifers. I know there is a thread on this already but it was never asked what in your opinion
is the epd's you would look at? Or do you look for looks? Offspring? or what.

Abs, genex and cattle vision who I usually by from with only abs and genex delivering. Here are a couple heifers that I bought from a Rhodes auction #1734439 and #3490415. Looking at redemption,new diection and deep end. any help? or what do you think? Just looking for input.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

I was just talking to a RA breeder today at our steer weigh in. I have a red Simmental heifer that I want to breed to get a red calf out of. She is large framed (a Feb 14th yearling, already close to 1000 pounds!), shallow ribbed, and needs improvement in her EPD's. I need a good calving ease bull to use on her (her BW EPD is like a +5 pounds). I have GCF Amigo in my tank (a simmental red calving ease bull), but he HIGHLY recommended Redemption. He said he has cows in production that are sired by Redemption and they are flat out performing! I am seriously thinking of using him for her.

 

[dun]

We are locally recognized for quality females. Most everything is Red Angus based, some wit ha touch of Hereford or Simmenthal. Most of the cows are straightbred Red Angus. Most years we will get 1 or 2 bull calves that are worth considering for seedstock, but the majority of our heifers are. We've been selecting for maternal for 16 years and it isn;t a quick deal to accomplish. When it comes to EPDs, we look at multiple generations to insure that an etheopian hasn;t been snuck into the fuel supply by doing a sky high EPD mating to the bottom 1% animal to make an average EPD. Our criteria are pretty simple. Well above average for CETM and average or better for CED. Milk, WW and YW around 10% of the breeed average Never have paid any attention to ME. Upper percentile for Stay and HPG. Carcass traits we want in the upper 50 percentile for the breed. This Herd Builder EPD is interesting but I haven;t really studied on it. I still prefer the older bloodlines, King Rob/Chateau, Basin Hobo, No equal, etc. or anaimls that have those mixed in their genetic background. Gotta go back a ways in their pedigree to find them though. For retention we look for around a FS 5.5 - 6, decent muscle, good top line, basicly all the attributes that are needed for a sound framed animal.
There's more but I don;t want to write a book.
Sorry for running on so long