ASA Fall Focus: Taking Technology Home to the Farm and Ranch

Here are videos from the American Simmental Association's Facebook livestream of my presentation titled "Taking Technology Home to the Farm and Ranch."

Tradition

Intuition

Legacy

Seedstock Producers as Educators

Decker's Rants

EPDs and Environment 

Q&A


Location: Bozeman, MT, USA

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EPDs 101: Use Information to Improve Your Herd

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Jared E. Decker
Associate Professor, Division of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri

Reprinted with permission from The Cattlemen and Santa Gertrudis Breeders International.

Can we be frank for a minute? It is quite simple: EPDs work. When we use EPDs to make selection decisions (which bulls to buy, which females to keep and cull), the performance of our herd improves. Let’s discuss why EPDs work, how they can be used, and pitfalls to avoid. Defining EPDEPD stands for Expected Progeny Difference. “Expected” in this context is a loaded word. We use it here the way a statistician would use it. Expected means we are describing a prediction of the future. Expected also means we are discussing an average, not a single observation. What is the average that we are predicting with EPDs? We are predicting the average progeny, or the average of an animal’s calf crop. Finally, when we are discussing EPDs we are discussing differences. Either the difference between two animals or the difference b…
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