?'s from sale catalog

[joe]

I am planning on attending a dispersion sale in a few weeks, and am a little confused by a few things in the sale catalog. this is a dispersion sale of Angus cattle.
What does it take for a cow to become a pathfinder? she is 13 years old, and her EPD's are fairly middle of the road. Her reg. # is 12005203.

Some say dams production... Calving interval 12@366 days, or 2@342 days. I am assuming this is how many days between calving dates? is this averaged? which of the above is better?

The ratios... what does that mean as far as 2 BWR 95, 2 NR 94, or 9 BWR 97, 9 NR 101, 5 YR 104.

Sorry for all the questions, but we are just getting into purebreds, and have never looked this deep into the numbers, just the EPD's and the basic "look" of the cows.
Thanks for any laymens term type help!

 

[Frankie]

I am planning on attending a dispersion sale in a few weeks, and am a little confused by a few things in the sale catalog. this is a dispersion sale of Angus cattle.
What does it take for a cow to become a pathfinder? she is 13 years old, and her EPD's are fairly middle of the road. Her reg. # is 12005203.

Here's a link to Pathfinder info at the Angus site:

http://www.angus.org/pubs/pathfind.htm

Some say dams production... Calving interval 12@366 days, or 2@342 days. I am assuming this is how many days between calving dates? is this averaged? which of the above is better?

It's averaged on individual cows. Shorter interval between calves is better. In a perfect world, you would want a cow to have a 365 or less day interval between calves.

The ratios... what does that mean as far as 2 BWR 95, 2 NR 94, or 9 BWR 97, 9 NR 101, 5 YR 104.

2 BWR 95 means she has produced two calves at a 95 ratio within her contemporary group. 100 will be average in a contemporary group, so her calves have had lighter than average BWs within that group. 2 NR 94 means 2 with a nursing ration of 95. Again 100 would be average, so her calves have been a bit light compared, again, to the contemporary group. I've never seen the NR used. I'm assuming it's the same as WW (weaning weight ratio)? 5 YR 104 means her calves have ratioed 104 as yearlings within their contemporary group, so that's a bit above average for the group.

Sorry for all the questions, but we are just getting into purebreds, and have never looked this deep into the numbers, just the EPD's and the basic "look" of the cows.
Thanks for any laymens term type help!

Hope this was helpful. Welcome to the Angus business.