Bull Buying Season: Across-Breed EPD's

County Agent News

Dan Folske

February 6, 2012

Bull Buying Season: Across-Breed EPD’s

            The cattle market has been great this past year and the outlook continues to look good for the near future. As producers receive those bull sale catalogs in the mail and start to think about the breeding season they need to be thinking about the genetics those new bulls will bring with them. For the purebred producer, both registered and commercial, genetic evaluation of potential sires and replacement females is relatively straight forward. Comparing EPD’s of potential sires within a single breed can provide an excellent comparison of the traits a producer is looking for among the bulls from one herd or multiple herds of the same breed. The challenge is in deciding which traits to emphasize over others and considering the accuracy levels of the EPD’s from on animal to the next.

            For the commercial cattleman who may want to take advantage of the heterosis of crossbreeding and is considering possible sires of different breeds the comparison is more difficult. The benefits of cross-breeding in cattle have been well documented in research. However, implementation of cross-breeding systems can be complicated. One of the issues with cross-breeding has been the complication of sire selection. Expected Progeny Differences (EPD) are not universal and standard among breed associations. Successful cross-breeding programs recognize that comparison of sires of different breeds must take into account these mathematical calculations and make adjustments to the EPD values accordingly. Once adjustments are made, sires of different breeds can be compared and proper sire selection can be accomplished to improve the genetic influence multiple sires can have on a cow herd. The Across-Breed EPDs (AB-EPDs) are most useful to commercial producers purchasing bulls of more than one breed. For example, in terminal cross-breed systems, AB-EPDs can be used to identify bulls in different breeds with high growth potential or favorable carcass characteristics.

            The Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center , Nebraska has long been recognized as an important provider of research documented information for the beef industry. The currently provide breed adjustment factors using the most recent genetic evaluations for eighteen different breeds. Oregon State University has taken that information and created an Across-Beed EPD Calculator. A producer using the Across-Breed Calculator can enter EPD information from one breed and the calculator will apply the adjustment factors to convert those EPD’s to the equivelents of the EPD’s of a different breed.  For example: If a producer has been using Red Angus sires and is considering using Hereford bulls he can enter the data for potential Hereford sires and have it converted to a format which makes it easy to compare to the Red Angus EPD’s of his current sires.

The OSU Across-Breed Calculator  is a Microsoft Excel 2007 worksheet. It can be downloaded from OSU at: http://beefcattle.ans.oregonstate.edu/html/forage/EPDCalculator.htm

The software functions best with Excel 2007 or compatible programs but a version for older spreadsheets is also available.