Alan,
Your example that Progress would likely be a calving ease bull because his EPDs indicates it as well as the fact that he is out of 242 who is a proven low BW bull, etc, is a good example of how you need to go about using the EPDs of unproven bulls.
Numbers do get cooked, some with the intent of deceiving and some is just good herdsmanship. If you swopped calves around between pastures to manipulate contemporary groups to favour certain calves you are cooking numbers with the intent of deceiving. If you are using a proven ultra low BW bull on high BW cows you are just being a good herdsman, but you are still cooking numbers. For example you use a -2 BW bull on a +6 BW cow and get a calf with a 2 BW projected EPD. A +2 BW EPD would qualify the bull as a low BW possibly calving ease sire, where in actual fact he is just as likely to lean to the +6 as he is to lean to the -2. Granted he will be within 1 standard deviation from the +2 in 66% of the cases, but his +2 would still be much more unreliable than a +2 bull out of two +2 parents.
So to get back to what you said, if you plan on using an unproven bull for a specific purpose like, calving ease for instance, and you lack the skill to identify calving ease bulls on phenotype and knowledge of the ancestry, you'll be better off looking at the 3 generation pedigree and their EPDs instead of building your hope on the figures of the single animal.
Your example that Progress would likely be a calving ease bull because his EPDs indicates it as well as the fact that he is out of 242 who is a proven low BW bull, etc, is a good example of how you need to go about using the EPDs of unproven bulls.
Numbers do get cooked, some with the intent of deceiving and some is just good herdsmanship. If you swopped calves around between pastures to manipulate contemporary groups to favour certain calves you are cooking numbers with the intent of deceiving. If you are using a proven ultra low BW bull on high BW cows you are just being a good herdsman, but you are still cooking numbers. For example you use a -2 BW bull on a +6 BW cow and get a calf with a 2 BW projected EPD. A +2 BW EPD would qualify the bull as a low BW possibly calving ease sire, where in actual fact he is just as likely to lean to the +6 as he is to lean to the -2. Granted he will be within 1 standard deviation from the +2 in 66% of the cases, but his +2 would still be much more unreliable than a +2 bull out of two +2 parents.
So to get back to what you said, if you plan on using an unproven bull for a specific purpose like, calving ease for instance, and you lack the skill to identify calving ease bulls on phenotype and knowledge of the ancestry, you'll be better off looking at the 3 generation pedigree and their EPDs instead of building your hope on the figures of the single animal.