Your Vote needed on an Angus you would select.

[DTA ranch]

In an Angus Bull, if you had to make a choice. Would you pick a bull with great bloodlines and EPD's with poor phenotype or a bull with good phenotype and low EPD's and poorer quality bloodlines. This is for a commercial herd on cows.

 

[Beefy]

neither, there are plenty of angus bulls with both. keep looking.

 

[Frankie]

In an Angus Bull, if you had to make a choice. Would you pick a bull with great bloodlines and EPD's with poor phenotype or a bull with good phenotype and low EPD's and poorer quality bloodlines. This is for a commercial herd on cows.

What Beefy said.

But if every other Angus bull in the US died and I had to choose between the two you mention, I'd probably go with the bull with the good bloodlines and EPDs.

Every research article that I've read tells me that EPDs are the best indicator of an animal's breeding potential.

My own experience tells me that managment (or mis-management) greatly affects a bull's own performance and looks. My neighbor creep feeds his calves; we don't. He gets higher weaning weights than we do, but, since we use much the same genetics, we usually have similar yearling weights.

This is assuming that both bulls are fertile and sound.

 

[BRG]

Phenotype is always more important than any number or pedigree. If it doesn't look good it won't sell. Thats all their is to it.

 

[Brandonm2]

There are too many Angus bulls (and you could have substitituted Hereford, Simmental, Charolais, Limousin, Gert, or any other major breed) out there to EVER buy one with poor EPDs OR poor phenotype. IF he himself did not grow out into a desirable specimen for the breed then it is unlikely that he will ever live up to the performance promised by his numbers. On the other hand if he himself looks desirable; but his EPDs tell you that he is mediocre; then many of his calves will probably more closely resemble those lesser relations in his pedigree which produced those poor numbers. I know some bulls outperform their numbers; but I am not a gambler. I would not expect to buy a bull in the top 5% of the breed in multiple categories and looks like a national show winner for $1500-2500; but I do expect to get a bull which will improve my cows, phenotypically, genotypically, and dollars and cents wise at the salebarn. If a bull can't do all of the above get back in the truck and drive to another farm.

 

[Scotty]

I agree with most that is said. In my eforts to be a "true" cattleman, phenotype to me is important to a point. They need good feet and legs to be able to get around. Big bone structure to carry calves. But i don' need "show" calve legs to get that. Nothing against show cattle. Good carcass, good convertion, and sound structure.



Scotty

 

[tom4018]

In an Angus Bull, if you had to make a choice. Would you pick a bull with great bloodlines and EPD's with poor phenotype or a bull with good phenotype and low EPD's and poorer quality bloodlines. This is for a commercial herd on cows.

Looks like I am not the only one running into the problem. Sometimes I think the Angus site is going to ban me from looking up anymore numbers.

 

[Larry Sansom]

Pedigree and epd is a start - but remember it is an Average of Expected results. Phenotype is real. The epd guys just have a hard time explaining the wide variation, except with accuracies - just look at me and my great looks and my ugly sister even my kids are perfect, and hers are really bad. If you had looked at our parents EPD's you would have expected us to all be smart and beautiful like me! (Actually she is the beauty queen and I am the odd ball) Great cattle were bred and selected way before any number cruncher and his epd was ever thought of. EPD= Exaggerated Progeny Deception remember we need good cattle - not good numbers. This concept is really hard for many of the current angus breeders to accept.

 

[Chuckie]

I second what Beefy said.

 

[Brandonm2]

Pedigree and epd is a start - but remember it is an Average of Expected results. Phenotype is real. The epd guys just have a hard time explaining the wide variation, except with accuracies - just look at me and my great looks and my ugly sister even my kids are perfect, and hers are really bad. If you had looked at our parents EPD's you would have expected us to all be smart and beautiful like me! (Actually she is the beauty queen and I am the odd ball) Great cattle were bred and selected way before any number cruncher and his epd was ever thought of. EPD= Exaggerated Progeny Deception remember we need good cattle - not good numbers. This concept is really hard for many of the current angus breeders to accept.

That variation is EXACTLY why we have EPDs. A very mediocre line can produce very good "phenotypically" individuals that perform well in either the ranch environment or in the show ring. We all remember superb cows sired by bulls with EPDs which NOW are very subpar. It does not mean that the cow we remember was EVER subpar OR that the EPDs were not necessarily accurate. The other calves you NEVER get to see in the breed magazine are the rejects which got shipped or the dead calves they pulled out of their cows. That does not mean that those mediocre genes were all shipped with them. EPDs measure the performance of both the those individuals who win their class in the state fair AND those individuals who wind up as Yield Grade 4 Selects in the feedlot (if the data is reported correctly). A high performance line can still throw a toad or a flat ribbed hard doer; but because EPDs are AVERAGES of expected performance those animals should occur less often in a performance line than in a mediocre line. You still have to be able to visually evaluate cattle because there is no feet and legs EPD, topline EPD, udder quality EPD, volume EPD or muscling EPD (though REA and %RP are good muscling indicators) and you don't want to be the sucker that buys one of those bottom 10%ers out of a very good sire. Just because it is very possible to see a poor phenotypically individual with good EPDs does not mean that you should disreguard EPDs, because you could end up with a very good looking bull and a calfcrop that are very underperforming. There are ~100,000 registered Hereford cows floating around out there and ~200,000 registered Angus cows out there. IF a calf you are looking at is not going to get it done phenotypically or his EPDs show that his relatives are some of the least desirable animals in the breed.....you just move on to evaluate the next calf. It is not difficult to find another Angus or Hereford bull and really there is excellent bull selection in any of the top 15 breeds in most cases without straying far out of your state. There are probably 20 breeds available just in my home county.

 

[la4angus]

In an Angus Bull, if you had to make a choice. Would you pick a bull with great bloodlines and EPD's with poor phenotype or a bull with good phenotype and low EPD's and poorer quality bloodlines. This is for a commercial herd on cows.

Who is to say what is good or bad EPD's on a particular bull. What is good EPD's for my herd , may be poor EPD's for someone else's herd.

 

[TSR]

In an Angus Bull, if you had to make a choice. Would you pick a bull with great bloodlines and EPD's with poor phenotype or a bull with good phenotype and low EPD's and poorer quality bloodlines. This is for a commercial herd on cows.

What Beefy said.

But if every other Angus bull in the US died and I had to choose between the two you mention, I'd probably go with the bull with the good bloodlines and EPDs.

Every research article that I've read tells me that EPDs are the best indicator of an animal's breeding potential.

I agree with Frankie. I have a neighbor who has been through the "looks" deal or phenotype only as a reason to buy. He said that some of the best looking bulls he has bought had the worst calves. There is just too much data there in the Angus Association's web site for epd's to not be more reliable than phenotype alone in my opinion. Very seldom have any of the epd's of the angus bulls that I have used not been valid with respect to the progeny of that particular bull.


My own experience tells me that managment (or mis-management) greatly affects a bull's own performance and looks. My neighbor creep feeds his calves; we don't. He gets higher weaning weights than we do, but, since we use much the same genetics, we usually have similar yearling weights.

This is assuming that both bulls are fertile and sound.

 

[Frankie]

Years ago Henry Gardiner came to a field day in Texas and gave a talk about EPDs. He had a set of 3x5 cards. They kept a card on each cow's production, breeding, etc. He said for years they went around to state fairs and breed shows and bought the blue ribbon winners. They would compare the calves sired by those blue ribbon winners with last year's blue ribbon winners and the year before. Some years they'd improve weaning and yearling weights, some years they wouldn't. His cards were were used to help establish the Angus EPD data base. He said since he had started using EPDs, his WW and YWs and never gone down. I'm sure their record keeping is a bit more sophisticated these days, but those cards made a big impression on me that day as far as EPDs went.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

Phenotype is always more important than any number or pedigree. If it doesn't look good it won't sell. Thats all their is to it.

BRG - I understand your concern for good Phenotype. That is a great percentage of what the buyer is concerned with when BUYING an individual animal. However, that ISN'T all there is to it. If you will read the original post again - the DTA Ranch said, "- - if you had to make a choice . . . . .this is for a commercial herd on cows." He is not selling the Bull. He is selling the bulls PROGENY! While PHENOTYPE is critical with the Commercial aspects of any individual, the Expected Progeny Differences of Production, Maternal, Carcass, and Ultrasound predict the genetic potential of animals as parents, and here we are absolutely talking about this Bull as a parent - a parent of commercial calves to hopefully make the owner a profit. The accuracy figures relating to specific EPD's indicate the reliability fo the EPD prediction. Herd fertility is the most important profit potential production trait. Research has shown that on a commercial basis, herd fertility is at least five times more important than the growth traits for herd profitability. The EPD's of "OUR BULL" is the prediction of how his progeny will be expected to perform as commercial 'money-makers'! In this regard, "OUR BULL'S" phenotype isn't worth a critical glance compared to what his potential for producing 'feeder calves' amounts to in the profit column.

"PHENOTYPE" is what an animal 'looks' like.

"EPD's", taken all in all, are what the Progeny of that (those) animal(s) will DO because they are a reflection of the animal's GENOTYPE.

In My Opinion, judicial and intelligent uses of high accuracy EPD's will positively and profitably affect future Phenotype of the progeny as well as the $Profit corner of the ledger!

DOC HARRIS