sue said:
I would pay more attention to accuracys - especially on older bulls.
Captain is gaining ground but look at JPJ and Goldmine- both in the 80% for epd acc. I believe 034 is in the 80's as well?
As far as $ epd- well let's just wait and see? Im with Jaimie "it's new"? Nate- I am looking more at actuals as well.
329 - literally no acc? (I can pick on my own bull) he is in the 30 % and most of the rest of the bulls listed are less then 50% on this page.
I agree that the accuracies are a key component to the true evaluation on any sire. In many cases it can take several years before the numbers and accuracies can correct themselves to come even close to providing a decent accurate picture of what a bulls genetics can do. In many cases, many of these sires are dead and gone before any accurate numbers are produced which is most unfortuante, but this is probably the best that can be done. It is also more difficult for a breeder with a small herd to ever get the accuracies that other major larger herds can get on sires, especially if they have AI sires that are used in many herds. I understand that there is really no perfect answer to this problem but it can distort the numbers in some cases IMO. One of my biggest problems with putting your faith into numbers is what they don't tell you. I see far too many people making breeding choices from numbers alone, which in my opinion, can lead your herd or a breed down the wrong path. EPDS are just a tool and like any tool, they are useful but usually they have to be used in combination with other things. IMO, the most valuable tool in breeding cattle is plain old common sense. If a person can accept that EPDs are a tool and not the total answer to making proper breeding decisions, I think everyone benefits.
Last year at our bull sale, I watched a young couple eliminate several very good bulls in the sale, because they did not think that a Milk EPD of +2 was high enough. I tried to explain to them that a Milk in a breed like Shorthorns, of +2 can be a very good amount of milk. They decided to put their faith in what their college professor had told them, and they ended up purchasing what I thought was my poorest bull in the sale. This bull had a Milk EPD of +6 but other than that, there wasn't much else positive about him compared to many other bulls in the sale. After seeing this happen, I was wishing I had pulled him from the sale, as I had initally intended to do. I just hope this bull doesn't sour them on trying another Shorthorn bull. This was another lesson to me to follow my gut instincts and cull my bulls even harder.
Last night I was filling out some entry forms for a group of bred heifers I am taking to a sale this fall. I checked every heifers EPDS and again I wondered to myself if I should even include them as I do not believe they represent these heifers properly One heifer has a WW EPD of +39,a YW EPD of +63, and a Milk EPD of +5.Her dam has a Milk EPD of +7, and while she does a decent job of raising her calf, she does not come close to bringing in as big a calf in the fall as the dams of the other 5 heifers.
The other 5 heifers have WW EPDs of +15 to +21. They have YW EPDs of +22 to +25. They have Milk EPDs of +1 to + 2. All of their dams have Milk WPDs of +1 to +2 as well.
Looking at the EPD numbers, one would think that the heifer with the highest numbers would be in the top end of this group of heifers. Of these 6 heifers this heifer who had the highest WW and YW EPDs by a country mile, had the second lowest WW and the third lowest YW ( adjusted to 365 days). This heifer has WW and YW EPDs that are over double the values of the other 5 heifers. As I mentioned, the dam of this heifer has a Milk EPD of +7. Normally I try to stay away from females with Milk EPDs this high, as they can not be hardy enough for our conditions especially in a dry year. I liked the cow so I took a chance and quite frankly, I would say her milk production is marginal at best. I have always questioned Shorthorn Milk EPDs the most so I don't base too many buying decisions on them. One of my favorite producers in my herd has a Milk EPD of -2, which would cause most breeders to avoid her. In this case, the EPD numbers did not tell the correct story. I also think the EPDs don't tell the correct story in the growth EPDs of these 6 females. I am afraid that anyone who selects these females by numbers alone could be doing it totally wrong, in regards to their production abilities. I know I would select them totally different to what the numbers would suggest.
Looking at the phenotypes of these 6 heifers, the heifer with the big numbers, is definitely the shallowest bodied. I donj't need any numbers to know that, as I can see that with my own eyes. The other 5 heifers are much deeper bodied and I think they will all be easier fleshing than her. The heifer with the big numbers is coarser made, and quite frankly has an plainer ( uglier) head. I think an animals head can tell you volumes about its productivity and fertility. I guess I just have to question if I should include the EPDs as I dont think they will help anyone make the proper selections and only confuse too many people. Right now, I guess I'm leaning to including the EPDs in the sale catalog, as there are quite a few people who will not purchase animals if they can't have the numbers. At the same time, I scratch my head and wonder if I am going to be promoting these heifers improperly if I do put the EPDs in print.
I'm not even going to mention the $CE,$F and $BMI values on these 6 heifers as they totally make no sense to me. If I can't make sense out of them, and I am the person who raised these heifers, how could anyone make good breeding decisions who is trying to use them to select in a sale? I'm sorry, but until I see some numbers that suggest a closer representation to the accurate animals ability to perform, I won't be using them anytime soon to base my selections on!
is that the ASA does not require submission of data from the entire herd, even if you are in the WHR, in fact you can add and drop cows at will - what is required is that you pay an annual fee for any cows that are in your WHR (whole herd reporting) - thus the data is skewed to begin with - it represents, for example, some calves, sired by some bulls, from some breeders. SO, IMHO the percentage of something is pretty much irrelevant in a skewed sample - ie if the bull has a high percentage, but the dead, dystocia calves were not reported - who cares how high his percentage??? And when you create numbers from other numbers with low accuracy you just get numbers - they are not necessarily meaningful
