NEMO | Doug61 - 1/31/2026 16:58
Much of the above discussion confirms the value of calving ease. His birth wt was 89# from a recip cow which complicates my thoughts but my market is skewed to lower birth wt. If he passes his looks to progeny I think a hopeful wow.
Does he really have to be a heifer bull to be a good value to you?
Lots of thoughts to your comments.
MO Show-Me Select heifer criteria is a 14 CE for the Simmental and percentage Simmental bulls. Not that I enter any heifers in that program, but if I sell any heifers I can say the are bred to a Show-Me Select qualifying bull. So there is value in that.
I struggle with CE and the resulting smaller frame cattle. But I don't know of anyone that really likes to pull a calf, and if the calf isn't born alive then it doesn't matter how good the calf could of been.
After calving heifers that have been bred to a 14+ CE Simmental bull it makes for an enjoyable calving season.
With this bull ranking in the top 1% EPD for both API and TI, I feel like he has value as a heifer bull and a growth bull.
With GE (Genomic Enhanced) EPD's I feel like it really does add some accuracy to the EPD. Look at sale catalogs with 3 or 4 full brothers via ET and there are noticeable differences between the bulls both on paper and in person. An example would be to take a 6.2 frame bull with a little lower CE score than his full brother that is say a 5.8 frame and a higher CE score. The same 6.2 frame bull will likely have a higher WW and YW EPD over the 5.8 frame brother. This kind of follows common sense. If they are genetically the same shouldn't the EPD's be the same? They use to be on ET calves until GE came along. Or at least it seems that way to me the best I can remember.
I know there are lots of EPD calculations, and I really haven't studied or kept up with them, so I can be way off on all of this. But the little I've studied a few bull sale catalogs that is a trend I have noticed with GE EPD'S. |
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