What Do You Think About This Bulls EPD

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BK9954

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Thinking buying this young guy for breeding brangus and then brahman later. Any thoughts on his EPDs? He is 14 months. My cows wont need another bull for about 3 or 4 months.


 
I think this bull's epd's are as close to meaningless as epd's get as his sire has 0 epd information available and his dam's epd information accuracy is so low the point of epd is nearly moot. So I would base buying him 100% on what I thought of him in person and would want to see his dam, sire and other calves from his sire in person before paying much more than by the pound for him. He is an unproven bull out of an unproven sire.
 
I have only read EPD's when ordering semen. Wasnt sure what to make of these. Owner said the Dam got the Dam of Distinction award which is pretty distinguished apparently. He is priced well over beef price but all registered are.
 
I found a picture of the sire and EPD's. I am not too familiar with registering but I dont see his numbers, only sire and dam. Is this because of not record keeping. This sire is 3 years old.


 
I'm biting my tongue trying not to be too critical of another breeder but based on what you have said so far there are several things here that don't sound right to me and are raising some red flags for me...

First off this bull does NOT have EPDS: http://www.herfnet.com/online/cgi-bin/i ... 9=515B515F His Dam does have EPDs but his sire does not. You only get EPDs if you turn in weights to the AHA.

Second, he is not 14 months old, he doesn't turn 1 year old till May 16th according to his registration. Not sure maybe you meant he'd be 14 months by the time he is turned out with some cows?

Third, his dam is not a Dam of Distinction. She has no progeny recorded with AHA. Here is the criteria to meet DOD status and any dam that meets that gets a "DOD" after her registration once she achieves that: http://www.hereford.org/genetics/recogn ... stinction/ The only DOD in his pedigree is 3 generations back on his sire side which is a cow in the Mohican herd.

Cow Pollinator said it best, I'd keep looking. I don't know anything about your operation or experience with cattle but for a Hereford that is a calf IMO should have seen the knife after weaning and sent to the feedlot as I think based off that picture he is lacking masculinity, muscling, and bone that you want to see in a Hereford bull. Do they have any weights on him? EPDs should not be used as a primary selection tool. I can show you sets of EPDS that look impressive on paper that we sent to the feedlot or sale barn due to poor actual performance. We do use EPDs as part of our decision making but if the actual raw data isn't there to support them or they don't meet our standards for phenotype it doesn't matter if they have high EPDs you can't justify a poor performer or structurally flawed animal just because their EPDs are good.
 
I agree with SPH. Although I'm still learning EPD's, this one doesn't look too good.
 
They say pictures are worth 1000 words....... this one sems not to have anything to say. May be just the picture butI doubt it. I'd especially run if he has access to a feed trough.
 

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