Kappes Trailblazer

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leanbeef

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I have been noticing this bull, but I haven't seen any calves out of him. I actually looked at him this spring as a potential candidate for using in a purebred herd. The thing that got him cut from the list is his negative docility EPD! Realizing these are new numbers and the accuracies aren't going to be high, there has to be a reason his are negative. Everything else about him looks pretty good, but that made him not a good fit for our program. Good luck!
 

Till-Hill

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leanbeef said:
I have been noticing this bull, but I haven't seen any calves out of him. I actually looked at him this spring as a potential candidate for using in a purebred herd. The thing that got him cut from the list is his negative docility EPD! Realizing these are new numbers and the accuracies aren't going to be high, there has to be a reason his are negative. Everything else about him looks pretty good, but that made him not a good fit for our program. Good luck!
Where can you find docility scores for a Simmental at? Didn't know they had that I guess...
 

brick hollow

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Feb 1, 2010
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Seems like he might add a little more performance. But seems like I can't find much info on him?
 

firesweepranch

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Here is his EPD's. Notice the Doc (-.2)? 15 is the high, with 9.6 in the top 50% for the breed.

CE Brth Wean Year MCE Milk MWW Stay Doc CW YG Marb BF REA Shr API TI
EPD 11.2 -0.9 43.0 74.1 13.1 2.7 24.2 17.2 -0.2 4.9 -0.03 0.17 0.01 0.21 -0.39 117.2 71.8
ACC 0.83 0.87 0.84 0.82 0.69 0.67 0.67 0.18 0.47 0.58 0.46 0.54 0.56 0.51 0.09
 

firesweepranch

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Yep. They just came out with the spring EPD's a few weeks ago. Over the last 6 months, we, as producers, were asked to give a docility score to our calves when we weaned them. I am sure the accuracy is not the best, but it gives a good start. I looked over the docility scores in our herd this year, and most are pretty accurate. Some make me scratch my head, but it could be that our cattle are halter broke so most have been handled since birth.

Here is a link to the purebred breed averages...

https://herdbook.simmental.org/simmapp/template/evalstats,purebred.vm
 

leanbeef

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Hey...Sorry...I haven't been in touch for a day or two. Looks like you're finding out the answers to your questions. Doc EPD is brand new, and just like with the Angus EPD for Doc, it's a prediction of the percentage of calves that will get a Docility score of "Docile" or "1" as coded by the breeder. I don't know what the breed low is, but 5.6 would put a bull in the bottom 5% of the breed. So that makes Trailblazer below the 95th percentile. I haven't had any calves, so I can't speak to that, but that score would make me think twice about using him. I'm sure it doesn't mean they're all nuts, but I wouldn't expect any of them to be gentle, either. My thinking is there are enough good bulls to choose from without perpetuating traits like that. I think it's too bad, but just the same as I hate it when a bull I kinda wanna use has bad numbers for ANY trait...he probably falls off our list of possible sires. Every program is a little bit different and folks get to decide where they want to put selection pressure for their own operations, so... He just wouldn't work for us with a number like that.
 

Simmgal

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Till-Hill said:
leanbeef said:
I have been noticing this bull, but I haven't seen any calves out of him. I actually looked at him this spring as a potential candidate for using in a purebred herd. The thing that got him cut from the list is his negative docility EPD! Realizing these are new numbers and the accuracies aren't going to be high, there has to be a reason his are negative. Everything else about him looks pretty good, but that made him not a good fit for our program. Good luck!
Where can you find docility scores for a Simmental at? Didn't know they had that I guess...
The docility scores are on the American Simmental Association for most animals. You can search for an animal on the sight and it should be on it's EPD listing.

About Trailblazer, I know of someone who bred some to him, and they looked pretty good. The calves weren't super show machines by any means, but they were pretty good. I could try and find pictures if you are interested.
 
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