CE & CEM EPDs

I decided that I wanted more PPLs opinions on this post that I asked from the best Simi bull thread so I copied and pasted it up here for more PPL to see hopefully.

Husker1:  Sorry about the statement "proven".  I think we need a definition of the word proven.  I do not mean this with any disrespect.

Of my short list of bulls mentioned, NLC Upgrade, Fat Butt, and Ebony's Grandmaster, I do not believe they have sired heifers/cows that now have calves at there side.  I suppose I have a tendency to sometimes to use the word proven as a bull with one or two calf crops on the ground to analyze.  It take three years to four years from when a yearly bull actually has heifers/cows in production, or a bull son in production, to truly call him proven, in the true sense of the word.  Thank you.

Still not sure if NLC Upgarde is the one because of all the "Mixed" comments I have heard also. My questions on him are...

1.  Does he have enough Milk to make good replacement Mama cows?  His EPD's for milk are quite low.  Then again so are Meyer 734"s and some people love him.

2.  He has a very low EPD for Calving Ease or MCE, what will that do, or what will that mean for my replacement daughters?


SEA your comment about CE & CEM brings up a question for me. How much weight if any do PPL in general & PB breeders  put on these values? Do potential bull buying customers look @ and make any hard fast decisions about buying a bull based on these 2 #s in particular? Thanks for any opinions.

I ALWAYS look at these two numbers and I will not use a bull that is negative for either. The level of direct calving ease I want in the top 30% of the breed, and I want the maternal calving ease at least a positive number. In fact, I'll pass over some calving ease bulls if they carry a negative CEM, because to me that says they're siring heifers with smaller pelvic areas, or the heifers aren't passing on the low birth weight consistently.

I mainly focus on CED for heifers but to me CEM is much more important as it takes pelvic area into account and I keep heifers for breeding, therefore the calving ease of a bull's heifer calves is even more important to me than the ease of the bull himself

We look at both when we are thinking about using a bull - but probably more so at the CE number. .  I don't put much trust in the number until the accuracy goes up. ..      I would put a lot of faith in that number being truly representative if the accuracy is in the 90s.   

I agree with all the statements previously made. I look at the numbers first, then look at the bull. I also look at MM, very important! I learned my lesson the hard way, bought a bred heifer with a negative MM, a negative number for MCE and did not have a 5 point split between BW and CE. Thought she would be safe since she was bred to one of the top calving ease bulls! She is the one I posted back in December about having a 110 pound first calf, dead, and down for two weeks and NEVER developed milk. Like I said, never again! We are too small a breeder to take a hit like that

I am just curious but is there a place to find these kinds of epd's on clubby bulls? I have seen some of the basic ones on a few stud services sites but not CE and CEM. Usually it is the standard BW WW and YW. I was just curious. I imagine you guys are talking about purebreds though.

OK I'm new at this EPD system and it is very confusing to me  ???.

I have only used club calf bulls in the past that said they were easy calvers for heifers. Now using a Simmi bull for a heifer trying to figure out this epd system.

OK, I am going off of Grandmaster's epd numbers cause I ordered some semen from him. A high CE number is good? A low BW number is good? Grandmasters is CE of 14.2 and BW is -3.0 so that says he is an easy calving with a low birth weight, correct?

Now with the MCE says that he is -1.6, is that bad as one poster says he would not use any bull with a negative number for MCE, so is that saying that Grandmasters calves will have a hard time calving? If so, that is not what I want, want to use him to put some Simmi in my heard for future club calf momas.

Thanks for any explanation.

You have it right MSC, his daughters will have smaller pelvic areas and therefore not as easy of a time calving.  You caught on pretty well looks like to me

Mueller Show Cattle said:

Now with the MCE says that he is -1.6, is that bad as one poster says he would not use any bull with a negative number for MCE, so is that saying that Grandmasters calves will have a hard time calving? If so, that is not what I want, want to use him to put some Simmi in my heard for future club calf momas.

Thanks for any explanation.

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I would say with the -1.6 MCE that you would want to take calving ease into special consideration when breeding his daughters. Doesn't mean you'll have to pull all the calves, but I would want to use proven calving ease bulls on them. I've set the bar high for MCE, but I'll have heifers drop 90+ pound calves unassisted that are vigorous and quick to nurse. Let's me pursue a bit more performance with that first mating.

flacowman said:

You have it right MSC, his daughters will have smaller pelvic areas and therefore not as easy of a time calving.  You caught on pretty well looks like to me

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OHH Boy, I have to rethink this then. I am looking to get some replacement heifers from this springs AI next year and want them to be good momas with good milk. I guess I better go through all the simmin bulls to try and find one that has easy calver (high CE), low birth weight (low bw) and a high MCE number to pass that trait on to there heifer calves having calves that produce good milk and make good club calf momas, one big package huh?I have some big mature cows that the calving ease and birth weight will not be that big of a deal but that MCE is. Then I also have some heifers that I need the high CE and low BW with a high MCE and good milk quility. Got my homework in front of me with breeding season just around the corner.

Putting that all together is what makes this business fun. It sure isn't slopping around in the mud during calving time.

Mueller Show Cattle said:

flacowman said:

You have it right MSC, his daughters will have smaller pelvic areas and therefore not as easy of a time calving.  You caught on pretty well looks like to me

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OHH Boy, I have to rethink this then. I am looking to get some replacement heifers from this springs AI next year and want them to be good momas with good milk. I guess I better go through all the simmin bulls to try and find one that has easy calver (high CE), low birth weight (low bw) and a high MCE number to pass that trait on to there heifer calves having calves that produce good milk and make good club calf momas, one big package huh?I have some big mature cows that the calving ease and birth weight will not be that big of a deal but that MCE is. Then I also have some heifers that I need the high CE and low BW with a high MCE and good milk quility. Got my homework in front of me with breeding season just around the corner.

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Don't forget to look at MM #'s. Yea, simmis have lots of milk compared to other breeds but you want to stay on a positive number there.

Thanks guys for that info, you are rite Top Knot, I would rather the cows and heifers doing all the work than pulling calves during the sloppy spring around here with all the melting snow.

I place great emphasis on both CE and MCE because. Proven CE especially for heifers. I'd rather have a live unassisted mediocre calf out of a first calf heifer than risk it for "the one".There are bulls that are great for both, but they are antagonistic traits. I used a bull a couple years ago and have some bred heifers by him. His MCE was ok when I first used him and now it's a negative number....needless to say I'm going to watch his daughters like a hawk come calving time. Gonna try not to make that mistake again.

There have been so many question on here about what to breed heifers too or breeding questions in general.

These EPD's that you are asking about CAN be done by our registry, Composite Beef Cattle Registry.

The whole purpose for what we are doing is to HELP the beef industry.  There are so many of the club calf bulls that because of whatever reason ARE NOT registered with any registry, or if they are people don't trust their EPD's.  How can you?  What I mean is that if you have an Angus heifer and want to breed her to say Heat Wave (as an example), how can you know if he could be used or not?  With our evaluations, being a true multi-breed evaluation and since our database contains over 70 different breeds and over 2.5 million animals, you can know how he will compare with any other animal no matter what breed or breed make up.  As an example of CE (Calving Ease) if a bull were to rank 86% (we start looking at bulls can be used on heifers starting in the 75%), this puts them in the top 25%.   There are many club calf offspring that are not registered with any registry either.  But we HAVE TO HAVE information, calf birth weights, weaning weights, etc.  WE DO NOT use any EPD's that have been calculated by any other registry.

EPD's are one of the most misunderstood and misused tools that is available.  One major problem as we see it and I think moreso with club cattle is with so many breed crosses and combinations, YOU as club calf breeders need accurate EPD's that can be used.  We offer that.  Our TRUE multi-breed evaluations will let you compare animals of any breed combination.

We did an evaluation on some bulls for a sale,  one bull that was in the sale was a 1/2 Braunvieh and 1/2 Angus.  His assoc. EPD for BW was -1.  Our evaluation ranked him in the 80% (top 20%) with a BW EPD of -3.4  The only other way to compare this bull is by using the BIF adjustments.  Using that, (which for Braunvieh is +7.3), this bulls BIF Across Breed BW EPD would be +6.3.    This bulls CE with us is a 4 and he ranks in the 77% putting him in the top 23%

The Composite Beef Cattle Registry is here to help.

What are PPL's thoughts about pelvic measuring heifers? Thoughts about the shape of the pelvic bone verses pure area? Are PPL interested in an adjusted pelvic area measurement for yearling bulls and research on what the% of heritability that trait would be passed on to their daughters?

What is a good MCE #? Also I read that alot of people put more on the CE than the BW, so what is a good CE and BW for a heifer? Also is any positive number ok for a simmin being they are good milkers, like a 0.8. The reason I ask is I have one heat wave heifer that I want to breed to a simmi bull and HW heifers or cows are not known to produce good milk and usually have a smaller pelvic area.

Mueller Show Cattle said:

OK I'm new at this EPD system and it is very confusing to me  ???.

I have only used club calf bulls in the past that said they were easy calvers for heifers. Now using a Simmi bull for a heifer trying to figure out this epd system.

OK, I am going off of Grandmaster's epd numbers cause I ordered some semen from him. A high CE number is good? A low BW number is good? Grandmasters is CE of 14.2 and BW is -3.0 so that says he is an easy calving with a low birth weight, correct?

Now with the MCE says that he is -1.6, is that bad as one poster says he would not use any bull with a negative number for MCE, so is that saying that Grandmasters calves will have a hard time calving? If so, that is not what I want, want to use him to put some Simmi in my heard for future club calf momas.

Thanks for any explanation.

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Let's look at this bull as follows:  SS EBONYS GRANDMASTER

                                                                  CE                    BW
American Simmental Association              14.2                  -3
BIF Adjusted                                                                      +2.7

CBCR    multi-breed evaluation              -1(26%)          +.9 (29%)  this bull ranks with us in the bottom 26% for CE and the bottom 29% for BW

this comparison with us is based on no matter what breed of animal this bull would be mated to, Angus, Shorthorn, Simmental, Maine Anjou, etc.

Cbcr, your thread gathered quite a bit of chat here not long ago. I thought that for some that missed it I would put the link up.



http://www.steerplanet.com/bb/index.php?topic=26892.0

Here is a set of EPD numbers I like, CE 11.8, BW -0.8, MCE 7.6 and MM 2.4 for a purbread simmi bull that is polled and homo black. His name is Shocking Dream, I like his look, i'm gonna post a thread asking if anyone has used him and what they think. I'm just asking if you think them epd numbers would work to breed heifers to produce good heifers calfs that would be good club calf cows. Thanks