Im glad you culled for bad disposition. I think everybody should do that, regardless of the breed. I dont understand why the geonomics can determine a ww or bw epd from the genepool, but cant seem to find the temperment in there. I would like to see all the breeds wind up with docility EPDs, then the producers could at least look at that and use it in their decision making process. I run a small herd and temperment issues are easily discovered, but I do understand a larger or more spread out herd needing a EPD or something to help out. I have culled some very well bred cattle because of temperment, and have found times when I have to pick a few to sell, the one with the very best attitude gets to stay when choosing between similar ages/pedigrees etc. Bad disposition, or even a spooky/easily scared disposition have to go away here and definately seems to be a trait that is passed down from the parent. I sure dont want to sell somebody a bull or brood cow that is crazy, and dont think anybody else does either really. Life is too short to be fearing for it while checking cows in my opinion,not to mention the childrens sake. Heres hoping you get those two on the next trailer out of there. And for what its worth, I group scared cattle or flighty cattle with the aggressive ones. I dont like a scared cows either. On the plus side, crazy cows are tasty like you said!
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cotton1":323vmlq6 said:
George already hit on the subject about docility EPDs and I have to agree, the reason why you can't trust geonomics for tempterment is because temperment is s subjective trait not quantitative like weights are. The only way you really can collect any data on temperment is by having the breeder score the animal which leaves a lot open to interpretation of what is bad tempermant compared to good because what 1 guy might think is a wild in their herd that same behavior might be typical of another herd and that breeder wouldn't cull for it. There probably are bulls you can trace some docility issues too but I doubt you'd be able to do that with good accuracy using an EPD for it. I realize a guy could fudge on their weights too I'm sure but it's a lot easier to get accuracy from lots of actual raw weights than it is to score an animal for how 1 guy thinks it behaves. Plus on top of that who is to say that enough people will actually submit docility scores anyways when you take the Hereford breed for example, only 104 breeders from the entire country made TPR status when the breed has thousands of breeders (I don't know the actual total number of active memberships) that 104 is a pretty small percentage that is reporting back all TPR data. If only a small percentage are just reporting the bare minimums for TPR status imagine trying to put any kind of accuracy on a docility EPD number when most probably still would not be scoring their herd for it. That is why I have a hard time getting behind having a docility EPD. Herefords just added udder EPDs in the past year, I don't really put much faith in them right now because there just can't be a lot of data behind them yet. We've been submitting udder scores for several years now but even with that if I pull up some of our oldest cows accuracies are still 40% or less. We're not going to make any kind of decisions based off an udder EPD, we're going to make them using physical evidence on udder structure when making those kind of decisions.
http://www.hereford.org/node/11226
We collect udder data and have for several years, but dont currently have EPD for it. I get what you are saying about the EPDs being subjective to accurate data being turned in and a difference of opinion of what is a good temperment. Im not sure how a breed association would make guidelines for the docililty, but surely there is some correlation to some genes that can be found in the ones that actually do get turned in as poor temperment(Genomic)? At this point we just use our own judgement and have a very calm herd. It has been my experience that a crazy mama will have a crazy baby most likely. Is that an inherited trait, or a learned behavior? I think some of both. You know the old saying about one bad apple. The truth is that the big picture in beef producers across the breeds in seedstock, simply dont want to turn in bad data on their calfs because they dont want to give themselves a bad reputation.I have seen producers turn in no data and just take the parental averages when the results were not favorable. Why not just cull? The issues with temperment are just one of the things that are getting me closer and closer to a closed, line bred herd with cattle I know in every bracket of the pedigree. I cant say I know how the breeds could get a reliable docility EPD, but I have been interested to see some of the Angus sales catalogs and note the ratings in there. I guess its kind of like the udder EPDs you were talking about, you might find that ones you like are not the most favorably rated ones on a EPD, or feel you have some that should be rated higher than they are. EPDs are a tool, but cant replace good sense, or good herdsmanship for sure. Im just glad you found a problem source, and eliminated it. If everybody did that, we wouldnt be talking about a EPD for temperment. I also think the fact that you found a sire, and his offspring to be crazy proves that there is something in the genetic build causing that type of behavior.
I luv herfrds
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Have had guys tell us that we are crazy to not keep the flighty ones because they will keep a predator away. Well guess they never realized they were also on this cows predator list. Have seen cows that are just sniffing us as we tag their calves, chase coyotes completely out of the pasture.
I just look at EPDs as a tool and not as a fact. Works for me.
I just look at EPDs as a tool and not as a fact. Works for me.
