Using EPD's in a show?

[Jill]

Most people would still think you are crazy for bringing a May baby for the May class and that is the issue I have with using EPD's, most of the "May babies" are actually March babies that weren't found until May (lol) I can't speak for Shorthorns, but I wouldn't put a plug nickle on the EPD's in the Maine breed, they are nothing more than a set of numbers, however I do think in this case if the judge is given a set of EPD's they are obviously meant to use them, the only time I would think they would be a determining factor would be between a really close live placing.

 

[JoeBnTN]

EPD's are a tool. Use them to the best of your ability and use common sense. I know of a bull that went from a 1.5 BW EPD to a 6, yet his offspring (from owners herd) never seemed to weigh much, nor did their EPD's reflect that.
Weights and frame scores are "actual measurements"??? Are you kidding me? RW, you know as well as I do, people stand on the scale (oops), pull down on the halters (did I do that?), pump with water (but they weren't drinking) and hap-hazardly use the frame stick to get the number they want. So that is more accurate than EPD's? Doubtful.

It is the show people who insist that they are producing the type of cattle that "are useful in the real world" and "can out do any regular feedlot steer in a real feedlot", yet when a "real world" tool is applied to the show ring everyone squawks about how awful it is. Make up your mind people, you can't have it both ways.

To clarify: Way to go Judge!! It is about time someone tried to place the cattle by not only their pumped water weights, popped hair, fake birthdates, and halter holder, but actually  use something more "real world and accepted"!!

Now if I can just get them to laugh at "open, ready to flush" (or the many variations that is so often put in sale catalogs!!!

As my kids say "You go girl!""

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

Yes I am in an EPD driven breed unlike the shorthorn breed. My entire point is don't let a piece of paper with fabricated numbers win classes and leave far better animals stand lower in class because they don't have the right "mail". I've been there and seen it! A few years ago the champion bull at Denver was such a pathetic cripple that he literally drug one hind leg and you could follow everywhere he had been by the "snake tracks" in the saw dust, but he had "CURVE BENDING EPDs" so he won, THIS IS BULL SH*T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't get trapped in the mythological EPDs will let me breed better cattle. If you can't breed sound functional cattle with less than 100# birth weight on your own, a piece of computer generated paper isn't going to save you either. Mark my words all of you shorthorn breeders - when the EPDs are shoved into the show ring, the same people will win because they will be the first ones to manipulate the data turned in. If it doesn't bother you to stand on the scale, pump your animal or whatever, it's not going to bother you to dream up some fictitious data to turn in so your calves will have the "right numbers". The one thought that I posted earlier and apparently everyone missed is----
CATTLE OF SHOWABLE AGE DO NOT HAVE ACCURATE EPDS TO BEGIN WITH. MOST WILL HAVE INTERIM EPDS THAT DON'T MEAN SQUAT.    RW

 

[DL]

When the RA set up their show ring criteria they included performance. It worked something like this  -

performance records of individual cattle were evaluated including adj 205 WW, ADG (240 d test) and WDA - using these 3 factors cattle were divided into 3 groups - red, white and blue and the show cards were marked.

Cattle were then judged on conformation and the judge could place the animals any way he/she chose except a white card could not win  a class and only animals with blue cards could show for grand champion

what a clever system and it was devised in 1957 - the best of both worlds performance and eye appeal

I would suggest RW that the RA is not an EPD driven breed but a performance driven breed and when you require performance measures from all cattle you get EPDs with high accuracy

 

[Doc]

If you can put so much stock in  EPD's , then I geuss we don't need JPJ or Joe & JIT's bull. If you can afford it , we can just breed all of our heifers to Solution. I mean his BEPD is  -0.8 . Although there is nothing else out of his momma that has a BEPD lower than a +3.5.
I was told by a RA breeder one time than, that runs quite a few cows , that they pick a couple of calves by one bull & make them the EPD sacrificial lambs.

In the other breeds besides Shorties, was the decision to use EPD's in the ring decided upon by the B.O.D. or the membership or just a decision that one person pushed thru? 

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

When the RA set up their show ring criteria they included performance. It worked something like this  -

performance records of individual cattle were evaluated including adj 205 WW, ADG (240 d test) and WDA - using these 3 factors cattle were divided into 3 groups - red, white and blue and the show cards were marked.

Cattle were then judged on conformation and the judge could place the animals any way he/she chose except a white card could not win  a class and only animals with blue cards could show for grand champion

what a clever system and it was devised in 1957 - the best of both worlds performance and eye appeal

I would suggest RW that the RA is not an EPD driven breed but a performance driven breed and when you require performance measures from all cattle you get EPDs with high accuracy

DL -I wish that were true and at one time it was. However in todays world it's not exactly so. Every year my pen is filled with high EPDing steers because they weren't good enough to be bulls. Never forget that just because the papers say they are good doesn't mean that in the real world they are. Too many fingers working the number system to be "real". I go to auction after auction that have bulls with huge weaning and yearling EPDs and at a year old these calves are lucky to break 1000#, the cattle don't even come close to matching the numbers. Somewhere we are going to have to realize that computers only puke out the same garbage that they are fed. Remember the good old days when you actually looked at the animals for what they were in real life and studied pedigrees and then made your breeding decisions? I'm afraid there are very few "cowboys" left to breed cattle because they are good not because the data says to. If all of the data that has been collected in every breed was suddenly lost forever, how many "breeders" could still produce a marketable product by simply looking at the animal and studying the pedigree, I guarentee that in this breed there are some numbskulls that would be in a world of trouble. Buy the fact - sell the fiction. RW

 

[Freddy]

Well I definitely agree with RW , the EPD'S could be a great tool , just like showing could also be  but the big problem is people are involved in both of them.. The breed song for most of these breed's should be
(Whose your Daddy ) an then they think you should think that the EPD'S  ARE accurrate,  an some can't predict which genetic defect is coming up next ...it proably isn't going to change  cause people are running it , some with different goals than others... look at our government ...

 

[LN]

EPD's are a tool. Use them to the best of your ability and use common sense. I know of a bull that went from a 1.5 BW EPD to a 6, yet his offspring (from owners herd) never seemed to weigh much, nor did their EPD's reflect that.
Weights and frame scores are "actual measurements"??? Are you kidding me? RW, you know as well as I do, people stand on the scale (oops), pull down on the halters (did I do that?), pump with water (but they weren't drinking) and hap-hazardly use the frame stick to get the number they want. So that is more accurate than EPD's? Doubtful.

It is the show people who insist that they are producing the type of cattle that "are useful in the real world" and "can out do any regular feedlot steer in a real feedlot", yet when a "real world" tool is applied to the show ring everyone squawks about how awful it is. Make up your mind people, you can't have it both ways.

To clarify: Way to go Judge!! It is about time someone tried to place the cattle by not only their pumped water weights, popped hair, fake birthdates, and halter holder, but actually  use something more "real world and accepted"!!

Now if I can just get them to laugh at "open, ready to flush" (or the many variations that is so often put in sale catalogs!!!

Couldn't have said it better!

 

[JoeBnTN]

The thing that bothers me in this discussion is that most people seem to take an all or nothing approach - RW and others seem to be suggesting that adding EPD's to the mix means that soon we'll be ignoring everything else we have to work with in placing cattle.  Maybe it happens in other breeds but can't see that becoming the norm.  As I said earlier I've been involved in sorting a major show that used the data and it was just one more tool available to us.  Did it switch a few placings from shows that didn't have data - sure, but we're talking about animals risking falling one or two places, not cattle being ignored because the data wasn't right.    Using EPD's is like lots of things - use it carefully and it's a valuable tool.  Picking cattle on data alone is like any other single trait selection - you make a lot of progress in the selected trait but quickly lose out in almost every other area.  Most people don't do that in the real world - they use what they can see along with an evaluation of their genetics in making decisions.  Why can't the show ring use this balanced approach?

And to Doc's question about who/why this was done - this wasn't the first time judges have been provided the data.  They've had access to it before and it was up to them whether they looked at it or not.  This may be the first time that one used it so openly.

To RW's point about the potential abuse in using the data, the Polled Hereford breed several years ago actually held "performance shows" where it was clearly understood that the data was a primary consideration in final selection.  And yes there were some cripples that had great numbers that were exhibited, but they never won.  Instead for the most part you found sound, functional cattle that had a great EPD’s being exhibited and winning.

Purebred cattle shows are supposed to be the “picture window” into a breed – spotlighting the best the breed has to offer.  If a breed considered performance to be part of that equation, why shouldn’t it be allowed?  I just think it’s hypocritical to say that the only way to fairly evaluate cattle is visually, when we spend countless hours and dollars to alter the natural appearance of the animal. 

Oh well, maybe that’s why we all get our blood pressure so raised over a “cow show”

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

Under our former exec sec (and yes we finally got him canned!!)I witnessed judges being handed show programs with the placings already marked. Sound, functional cattle with average or a little better EPDs left standing in the class while Junk animals with superior EPDs won. If you believe that the data that is submitted to obtain EPDs is correct in every animal, you are sadly mistaken. The Red Angus breed has pushed the EPD deal harder than any breed I know. YES I have seen crippled animals win because they had the proper EPDs - that is a fact. In our breed judges were not given the option of using EPDs, they were required to. Maybe all of the other breeds will not follow the footsteps that we set forth and I hope they don't. EPDs in their purest form would be a tremendous tool to use but like anything else as soon as any emphasis is placed on them, there will be people that will manipulate them for their own purposes. Truthfully our breeds biggest problem is that there have been so many people manipulate the numbers that the EPDs really don't mean anything. I consider them a marketing tool that many people have used and abused. A perfect example of this is a bull that lead all registrations for a few years, he had incredible EPDs and was promoted as such heavily. If you were to see him in person (before they finally put him out of his misery) you would think that heat wave was a super sound sire in comparison. Make your own choices wisely but I still trust my eyes and knowledge of pedigrees about 1000% more than I trust computer generated estimates of what might be. RW

 

[justintime]

I have no problem with EPDs being used if there is accuracy in the numbers. Right now, I wish I could say there is high enough accuracy but I simply can't. I think the thing that must be remembered is that EPDs are simply a tool and they do not tell you everything you need to consider about a set of cattle.

When I go looking for a bull or female, I do not study the numbers beforehand. I select with my eyes and then check out the numbers and hopefully they are good enough to compliment my own judgement. EPDs do not tell you much about structure. They do not tell you anything about feet and legs, walking ability, body condition, length of spine, volume and shape of the animal, lack or excess of waste, masculinity or femininity, etc. It is a tool to help breeders select an animal for the performance traits they are wanting .  Maybe I am just to much old school, but I shudder to think of a judge selecting from a piece of paper that lists the numbers. I think the EPDs could be a great tool to review, once the cattle have been analysed, and it could be used to determine placings of two or three animals that are very close in type. Then EPDs could be used to help place them in a particular order.

Another concern of mine about using EPDs as a selection tool in the show ring, is who determines what the right numbers should be? Having the lowest BW EPD, or the highest WW or YW EPD is certainly not always the best. I happen to believe that there are optimum EPD numbers and these can change from farm to farm. Most everyone uses EPDs with variations in what they see as best. When that happens, I still think a skilled set of eyes and logical decision making has to trump variations of EPDs on a page ( sorry for using the trump word for those think I was said a swear word!!)

 

[Show Heifer]

Quote from Justintime: Another concern of mine about using EPDs as a selection tool in the show ring, is who determines what the right numbers should be? Having the lowest BW EPD, or the highest WW or YW EPD is certainly not always the best. I happen to believe that there are optimum EPD numbers and these can change from farm to farm. Most everyone uses EPDs with variations in what they see as best. When that happens, I still think a skilled set of eyes and logical decision making has to trump variations of EPDs on a page ( sorry for using the trump word for those think I was said a swear word!!)

I have a concern about using visual appraisal alone in the show ring. Who determines what is "whistle fronted", "correct and sound", "finished", "very maternal looking". Having the longest neck, or biggest rib shape, or thickest butt isn't always the best. I have had to literal hold back laughter when a judge comments "this heifer has very fluid movement". And you see them leave drag marks in the sawdust (couldn't walk over a fallen tree to save their lives). I have had to literally leave when a judge comments "This heifer has a very cow-y look to her" (looked like a steer to me). So visual appraisal is just as subjective (more so actually) than someone looking at EPD's. Everyone has their opinion, and that is why we pay a judge big money... to give theirs. Let them use what they want, have them request info. Its the judges show, a committee selected them to judge, now let them do their job.

In steer shows I would like to see ultrasound scan data listed on their back cards. Yes, numbers vary from tech to tech, but if the same tech did them all....
I would like to see all bulls over 12 months of age have a current semen check. I would like to see all females be bred past 14 months of age. Yeah, yeah, yeah, spare me the excuse of "she is in a flush program...."
I would like to see the genetic defect status of every female or bull regardless of age, unless they are shown in a market class (terminal).
I would like to see a show judged by a feeder calf buyer and a small time breeder (get the commercial aspect and the ecomonmic aspects all in one show - imagine that!)
I would like to see drug test for every top five, regardless of class. I don't care if it is a bull, heifer, steer. Test for everything.
I would like to parental verification for every bull and female champion.
Finally, I would like to see the price paid for the steers on their backcard. Useless information, but wouldn't it be fun!

 

[the angus111]

I agree Show heifer.Why cant these majors go to a 3 judge format.Surely some honest evaluation comes out of this.I would think parental verification would be tough though.You know this is argued every year and I guess it will continue to be.I am going to stir the pot a little.IMO the AAA has the only real EPDS and a data base to support it.And as I have said before the longer a A I sire is used the more accurate the data will be,cheaters included. rUSTY

 

[aj]

I think there are alot of commercial cattle out there that don't have the look. They make money in the feedlot and the pasture. I do think its a problem if the showring guy thinks the commercial industry is a joke...and the commercial industry thinks the showring people are a joke. I think alot of people don't considershowring cattle the ideal. epd's are interesting.  I think middle of the road epd cattle seem to be the best.jmo

 

[simtal]

  I think middle of the road epd cattle seem to be the best.jmo

there's alot more of those

 

[sue]

I have to say it too" you go  show girl" - You definatley "get it "  and I was bull  shopping I would probably stop at your place before some of the other posters. 

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

I realize that most of the people on here are not really familiar with the Red Angus breed and all of the EPD political BS that was shoved down our throats for so many years. I hope none of the breeds that you are in ever come close to what happened in the reds with the EPD/showring deal. And granted maybe we were the worst case scenerio and that has soured us on the believability of the EPD system as a whole. Freddy and I have been there done that in the reds and formed our oppinions because we have lived it. If you have any influence in your breed whatsoever I suggest that you don't let it happen to you and your breed. The sad truth of the matter is that the EPD's on my cattle are probably some of the most honest and accurate in the breed for the fact I don't pay much attention to them or care. I can tell which cattle are working and which ones aren't without the paper. I pay far more attention to birth weghts, weaning weights, yearling weights, udder quality and structural soundness than the computer generated estimates. RW

 

[inthebarnagain]

I heard at least 3 different shows down at the NAILE where the judge was talking about the cattle's EPDs.  It didn't just happen in the shorthorns

 

[Show Heifer]

Red Angus was a small insignificant breed just a few long years ago, and then EPD's were used in the show ring. They are now one, if not the fastest growing breeds in the country. Coinincidence? I don't think so.
Isn't it nice to be the leader once instead of the follower? Or maybe the reds aren't ready to be a leader yet.

Use everything as a tool to your advantage and liking, that includes epd's, visual appraisal, AI'ing and ET. Someone who doesn't use epd's AT ALL isn't taking advantage of technology and the data base the association has. Someone who ONLY uses epd's isn't using common sense or their eye balls. Someone who uses BOTH is a modern cattle producer who realizes the advantages of using genetic history (EPD's) to select a visually appealing animal.

 

[ghostrider]

If epd's are honest and accurate, it might not be such a bad thing.  But using them in the show ring is just that much more incentive to fudge on them for those who are willing. Even the most honest and accurate of epd's are still just that - estimates.  I have less problem with using actual performance data in showring evaluation, but still believe that the proof is in the animal itself.  A good judge can find performance and productivity in the cattle in front of him or her without computer generated data.

I personally do like the three judge system in bigger shows, but I very firmly believe that stocker/feeder order buyers have no business judging any part of a show (if that's the only thing that qualifies them, anyway).  I work with order buyers, consider some of them to be friends of mine, but their cattle evaluation skills are centered around putting together a consistent group of calves that have some grow, and being able to spot the limps, bad eyes, dropped ears or the one bull in a draft of 50 steers so they can be sure to get 'em discounted.  If you want to see how your cattle fare based on performance alone, you can take 'em to the sale barn where those guys judge every day.