oldtiger - 8/17/2017 18:11 Or you could have picked the wrong bull and your genetics regressed. The whole concept of EPD's and advancing genetics is great, but what if you picked a bull whose feet weren't nearly as good as you thought, or one that came out of a big bagged cow and now the daughters are showing that. The whole "it's better because it's newer deal" may be correct or maybe not. Keeping hfs out of proven cows, out of a bull from a proven cow,,,,repeat over and over, and pretty soon you'll have a cow herd. Not very glamorous, like big EPD numbers , but it works. Jim's post below, further illustrates my point, and to his credit he honestly appraised his situation I agree with everything except the "pretty soon" part, Oldtiger! Below I will post two sets of AHA EPD information. The first set is from my first registered bull, T021. This was from about 10 years ago when I was just starting with cattle and before I knew what an EPD was, let alone how to use them. As you can see from the T021 graph, mature cow weight and udder EPDs are terrible!!! From his EPDs, T021 is a terminal bull that you should not even think about retaining a cow from! Unfortunately I was not aware of that at the time and now have a number of cows which confirm T021's EPDs: huge cows with terrible udders. As you can see from the second EPD graph below, I now have another registered bull, C627 with quite different set of MCW and Udder/teat EPDs. C627 IS a bull to retain heifers from and build a cow herd! C627's females will be moderate-size, easy-calving cows with moderate milk and MCW with excellent udders and produce calves which will marble easily. C627 points out that there is a wide range of characteristics, traits and applications within the breed. Current genetic science enables us to see and select for what traits are important to us. C627 is pictured a couple posts down in this thread. Obviously we still need to look at bulls for structural soundness but EPDs are a great tool for seeing other traits which may not be visually obvious. I am posting this in the hope that others don't repeat my early mistakes. I appreciate the great job the AHA does in collecting, processing and presenting this data.
Edited by Jim 8/17/2017 21:46
 (AHA EPD Graph for Huth T021.gif)
 (AHA EPD graph for C627 Shorty as of 15 May 17.gif)
Attachments
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 AHA EPD Graph for Huth T021.gif (87KB - 49 downloads)
AHA EPD graph for C627 Shorty as of 15 May 17.gif (89KB - 78 downloads)
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dumb question but here goes
