The use of EPD's in the show ring.

Agree with Shady, no EPD's , back to basic evaluation of the beast, judges put your hands on the beast, understand the fitting is done with a purpose, figure the fualt and place the beast according, judging whats in the halter, not whats on the halter! The hair shop is great, pleaseing to the eye and a requirement for the sponsors...As an international judge i want current weight, and birth date spread in the class... thats my epd, I am asked for my phenotype evlaution, not to read some numbers!

aj said:

Also I'm not sure that there are good and bad epds.....if the epds are accurate. I personally like the moderate yearling and lower milk epds cause this fits my enviroment. I don't think maxing out the epds makes sense. They make harder keeping larger cows. jmo

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AJ, I agree with you. I think the really important epd to be accurate for the shorthorns is the CE and the BW. Then at least we can make educated decisions on our heifers. Also, when I am looking to buy something that is performance oriented for the commercial industry, I am looking for a good WW but also not a huge YW. I would like my commercial cattle to wean high and have YW around 1200 and not 1500. In other words, I don't want them to have huge frames when finishing them out but to be able to get maximum growth as a young calf on the dam. I think the big thing is to have calving ease, whether or not that means being able to have a 95 lb calf as a heifer or a 65 lb calf, as long as the calves aren't huge at finishing then the CE is the most important for me. The key will be trying to do what I just said.  (pop)

This is news to me. I've shown Angus my whole life and never been to a show nor heard of one where EPD's were judged or mentioned in reasons. And I know some top show cattle in Angus have very poor EPD's but through feeding and preparation those cattle look great for showing and then don't produce offspring. I will say we use EPD's quite a bit in our herd operation and have found them to be very accurate for most bulls though occasionally a young bulls BW is way off. I would never like to see a show judged with EPD's though because that is even more factors for a judge to base an opinion off and there are already enough areas for judges to make controversial choices.

Okotoks said:

We showed a bull in Denver once and his EPD's were the worst of the three in the class. Twelve years later all three bulls have EPD's with high accuracies and the bull we showed now has EPD's that are the best in every category. I don't know if the judge gave any weight to the the EPD's that day but if he did it would have been on info that was of little use in the long run.

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Here are their EPD's today in order of placing. Actually the first place bull still has the higher performance numbers. My point is how would these EPD's with high accuracy help place the class let alone the numbers they had at the time? The BW's would be too high for some on two of the bulls and the milk on the 3rd bull would be too high for others. It seems to me you would be best to judge the animals in the ring because no two people would agree on the EPD numbers because they are going to select for what they need in their conditions.
CE    BW  WW  YW  Milk  WM  MCE
-0.3    4.0  28    38    5      18    3.8
-3.1    4.0    8    16    1      5    -3.9
3.6  -0.7  20    35    11    21    3.0

My argument is not about the use of EPD's in general or the use of EPD's as a selection tool in regards to making breeding decisions. I believe they have a high level of importance in that regard.

However I also believe the data set is flawed, (speaking directly to Shorthorns in this instance)

Furthermore, EPD's are simply only a snap shot of aveages at any given time, which is deceiving. That is why there are instances such as what Okotoks is speaking of where the numbers change.  People take these numbers far too literally despite low accuracies.

Look at the wild swings in the data set of the ASA in the last 12-18 months and the impact on the numbers?

I'm also reminded of an article written by Dr Hunsely a number of years ago regarding this exact issue.

An example given, two full brothers born with similar birthweights etc, at birth their EPD's are identical, both bulls are widely used, one brother is a calving ease heifer bull the other is a performance bull and becomes a weaning and yearling weight trait leader their EPD's DRASTICALLY change over time where at the end of these two bulls career the numbers are completely different and they become polar opposites on paper despite the fact that they are as genetically similar as you can get.

When those bulls were shown as calves their EPD's would have been identical, what use were they in the show ring?

EPD's are never finite, only a snap shot based on the data reported at the time.

The animal in front of you "Is what it is".

What about cattle with no EPD's at all?

Shouldn't those cattle be evaluated on a fair playing field? Should the be penalised because they don't have magic numbers at the bottom of the page?

The next greatest sire of our time could be missed because their was no data available.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, place the cattle on their own merits.

Shady Lane said:

The animal in front of you "Is what it is".

Shouldn't those cattle be evaluated on a fair playing field? Should the be penalised because they don't have magic numbers at the bottom of the page?

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, place the cattle on their own merits.

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The only problem I have with this argument is that the cattle are rarely what they seem to be.  Between the pumping and gluing, 3 inches of the finest hair that would have made Farrah Fawcett jealous, and injectibles and supplements that have no "medicinal" value -- one can hardly claim that what you see is what you get.

The real debate is whether shows today are show windows for the true best a breed has to offer or simply a bovine beauty contest.  Either is fine, we should just be honest about what they are. IMHO.

5 or 6 years ago at a Hereford Jr. National the judge had been preaching about how programs needed to utilize epd's and he had been talking epd numbers in his reasons, etc.  Well I walked into a class and the calf that won it didn't have any numbers at all, the reason (I think) is because the bull the heifer was out of had a very high BW number.  This is the only time that I can recall that I have had a problem with a judge using epd's. 
I personally don't have a problem if a judge is simply using the numbers to avoid any train wrecks, but placing a class solely on epd's is a bit much for me.

  Trailers for sale . If we are going to show by the numbers then showing will be easy. You will not need
that 15-20 thousand trailer or that 60 thousand dollar pickup.Just grab your papers get in that old 70"s
ford escort  to go to the show lay down the papers and show.Save bunch money on equipment, motels bills
and only be there and and home at a blink of an eye.

A few years ago the Angus Society really pushed our EBV's in shows. It was a disaster. In the front line the animal placed 7th in class of 20 moved to 1st because figures. Some very good cattle with no figures did not place because of that  fact. In shows later that year all the figures were sent to the Judges prior to the show. Some had the judging done before they got to the show. Certainly figures are a tool but not the be all and end all. Over the last ten years we are seeing more Uni educated managers just buying on figures not on phenotype. Where have all the cattlemen, sorry, people gone. Looking at the set up of a bull for a in laid shoulder and hip to pin for his females rather than just his BW figures. The Australian record priced Angus bull sold recently has great figures and his semen is selling really well his structure is not brilliant and his dams is worse but boy has he got good figures. Home bred bulls often have better calves than AI sires but they are hard to sell because there figures are not that good because of less progeny and lower accuracy.
Sorry a pet topic of mine.

I think the arguments against using EPD's in the shows are really good arguments and I would agree with most of what is being said. I do agree that the cattle should be judged according to their soundness, structural correctness, and red meat but I think there could be use of EPD's when there are really tough decisions to be made between two close placings. I'm not advocating that EPD's should be used as the number one aspect of judging, not even close, but I do believe they can play a minimal role in a show and should be made available to the judge in major shows. I think advocating this would help motivate larger show breeders to breed for more balanced traits. Just a theory...

I remember when I was showing in 4-H and FFA, many times the judge would basically place the animals from the tallest to the shortest.  Then when he was giving reasons when he came to the 3rd 4th or 5th place animals he would say that these cattle were really nice in their structure and everything else and the only reason he didn't place them higher in the class was because of their height.  But at the same time giving his reasons he would talk about the first couple of animals and had a grocery list of what he would like to see changed.

I have also seen shows where if a pretty girl is leading an animal you can almost bet she will place high, even if she is leading a dead dog.  Judge must have forgot it was a cattle show!!!

I remember a few years ago I was ask to judge a 4-H horse show.  I judged the classes and kept notes, after the show was over one of the parents came up to me along with her daughter and ask me with an attitude why  her daughter didn't win a coupe of the classes.  I flipped back thru my notes and told her why, and her daughter said to her mom " See, I told ya Mom!!"

Part of the problem is judges know better (or sometime I wonder if they do!) but still do not judge like they are supposed to.  For some to be judges there is judges training involved, they may pass the training OK, but then do as they please when it comes to judging a show.

I also was at a dairy show when a judge placed a class, then there was a long break while another judge was judging a different breed in an adjoining ring.  He had ask that judge to come and look over how he had placed the class.  The other judge left the class as he had it.  When he gave his reasons for placing the class like he did, he mentioned that the reason for asking the other judge to view the class is that the judge had owned the animal that he had placed in third place and wanted a second opinion so that no one would protest the placing.  Probably if he hadn't said anything, no one would have ever know.

EPD's are important, but there are so many factors that affect them,  Not just the sire and dam of an animal but the grandsires and granddams.  If some of their parentage has sires that were widely used compared to a Natural service bull used in only one herd, EPD's are affected.

As Shadylane posted:The next greatest sire of our time could be missed because their was no data available.

This doesn't have anything to do with showing, but this statement also hold true for the industry.  Look at all of the sale catalogs, at many of the sales, bulls are being sold with the breeders retaining 1/2 semen interest.  How is anyone going to know if there is a superbull in a commercial herd somewhere or not, no performance data is being collected.