Herefords.US":2kgex0ha said:My concern is that these cattle already have BW EPDs above breed average. Breeding them back to a bull that has a +7 or +9 BW will increase that. How acceptable would those BW EPDs be to other breeders and commercial cattlemen? Is actual experience or an arbitrary number the most important information?
George
the best answer i can come up with for that question is "it depends". it depends on where you're marketing them & it depends on who's buying them. some commercial buyers have no interest in epd's & only look at actual weights. if they're going in a consignment sale, you'll have folks who look at epd's, folks who look at actual weights & folks who look at both. from my experience, it seems folks will buy a female with a higher bw epd quicker than they will buy a herd bull (for animals going into registered herds). i guess they think they can pull one calf easier than a whole herd of them. :lol:
Herefords.US":2kgex0ha said:But I've never heard of Jimmy Farrington. I "googled" the name with zero relevant results. So could you give me some history regarding the Farrington lines?
George
Jimmy & Leatha Farrington were breeders a number of years ago. their prefix was "JLF" so you can search for some of their animals that way.
Herefords.US":2kgex0ha said:But I've seen some things that have made me seriously question the real value of EPDs, except where there is considerable data to back it up, as in widely used bulls.
An example is the P606 bull. He was initially being marketed as a low BW, calving ease bull, but as his use has widened, his BW EPD has skyrocketed while his YW EPD has also receded by about 20 lb. No doubt he's still a very good bull, but his EPDs have changed.
one thing to consider on the rapidly changing epd's of popular bulls is that they are often used on cows with epd's almost opposite of their own in certain traits. for example, folks will use a low bw epd bull on cows with high birthweights & will use a high yw epd bull to increase the growth.