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West Central Iowa | As a breeder myself, I would recommend knowing the EPDs of traits that are important to you (as well as the actuals) because they will help complete the whole picture of the animals breeding potential. Unfortunately, many operations have taken a "Breed by number" approach and seek out bulls with the best EPDs in any given category/categories and breed them to their best EPD cows and they just produced their next high seller regardless of issues like the cow having marginal structure or a mediocre udder.
When I sell a guy a heifer bull, I look at actual BW, CED EPD, and BW EPD and use a combination of all three to make a recommendation. I've had bulls that had 85 lb actual birthweights with favorable EPDs that I comfortably recommended to customers and bulls with 80 lb actual birthweights that had less desireable EPDs that I did not recommend.
In a data driven world, I have seen too many people put ALL their confidence in EPDs and have lost a lot of stock sense. On more than one occasion I have had a bull buyer tell me they want a "sleep all night" heifer bull and then look across the pen and pick the largest frame, thickest made, stoutest bull and ask if he would work? I hate breaking them the news that he will not fit their need. Not saying that scenario is not possible, but VERY, VERY unlikely.
I live in Iowa, and for a majority of producers, cow/calf is not their primary income. I would suspect (and hope) that as one moved to parts of the country where families rely mostly or solely on cow/calf for income that stock sense would be more commonplace. | |
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Heifer bull numbers . Carlson
