Buck, I started with 2 commercial Hereford heifers, home raised, from a very good neighbor in 2006. We shared a rented bull. I bought 4 more older commercial Hereford cows from local sources the next year. I purchased 2 registered Hereford heifers from Jerry Huth, my bull provider, around 2008 or 09.

None of these were top dollar females. I think my first 6 cows cost around $600 each.  I did buy one expensive, good looking heifer at a ND show...around 2009 or so.  She thought lunch came in a bucket and was paralyzed trying to have a first calf.  Calf died and ended up having to shoot an expensive heifer.  That one cured me of buying any more females. So this one did not work out very well but did teach me a lot.

All of my current herd come from my initial $600 cows + 2 registered Huth heifers.  I now don't buy anything except a registered bull from Jerry Huth every couple years.  I retain a bull calf every year from my registered bull and one of my best cows. I use the retained bull to spread my best cow genes around. A bull can improve a herd much quicker than a cow.

So I am growing the herd internally with a somewhat line-breeding plan. This way I have a group of smaller-frame cows that do well on grass, can calve on their own and most can wean a 205 day calf that weighs at least 50% of their weight at weaning. My Z072 bull looks like he is going to accelerate my herd development. I'm thinking of having him collected.

Buckmaster, maybe I misread your question. If you are from ND, yes this ND heifer did have some Topp genetics in her background. However I sure don't want to blame that for what happened. Just more of a show heifer than a pasture heifer.  And a valuable lesson for me. Looking up her sire, Tundra 63N's EPDs, he has a CED of -2.1 and maternal CE of -0.7 so what did I expect? For comparison, my current Z072 bull has a CED of +9.0  (11 points better than Tundra 63N) and maternal CE of +4.6 (5.3 points better than Tundra 63N).

I could have avoided a lot of expense and agony if I had known and used EPDs before buying this expensive ND heifer. Here is this ND heifer's sire's (63N) EPD graph. If you compare this to my current bull Z072's EPD graph I think it is clear why this heifer had calving problems and why my current herd does not.

I am not dissing anyone's bulls. 63N may have had a lot of other positive attributes and certainly had eye appeal as did his heifer calf I bought.  Just answering your question truthfully and pointing out the benefits of using EPDs which was the point of the OP's question that started this thread.

Jim