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.
DTA ranch":1w5sv004 said: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.
DTA ranch":1ebwmjy8 said: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.
Larry Sansom":3s6qkzfk said: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.
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.DTA ranch":3jhhmtlz said: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.
Frankie":jlo3v5s7 said:DTA ranch":jlo3v5s7 said: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.
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.BRG":3t0s0isf said: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.