New Show-Me-Select Sire EPD Requirements Announced

At the January 4th Show-Me-Select Board of Directors meeting, new service sire EPD requirements were approved. All sires, artificial insemination and natural service, must meet minimum Calving Ease Direct (CED) EPD requirements. In addition to yearly updates, two changes were made.

First, no Birth Weight EPD requirement will be published. All commonly used breeds now have CED EPDs available.

Second, all breeds in the International Genetic Solutions (IGS) genetic evaluation are now set to a common requirement. In the summer of 2018, breeds within the International Genetic Solutions switched to a single-step BOLT multi-breed genetic evaluation. The EPDs for animals in the IGS genetic evaluation are directly comparable across breeds.

In 2017, the Red Angus requirement for CED was a CED of 8, which represents the 30th percentile. Less than 5% percent of heifers breed to a bull with a CED EPD of 8 or larger had calving difficulty. We feel that this require is meeting the need to reduce calving difficulty (requirement is well calibrated).

Looking at the 2019 requirement, the Red Angus CED 30th percentile was a 13. The 2019 Simmental requirement of the top 15th percentile for CED was a 12.8 (basically a 13). The board approved that all breeds in the IGS evaluation have a CED of 13 or higher.

Show-Me-Select producers were also reminded that all natural service bulls purchased after February 1, 2019 must have genomic-enhanced EPDs (GE-EPDs). Also, all natural service bulls used in the program after February 1, 2020 must have GE-EPDs.

Service sire breed	2019 Minimum Calving Ease EPD
Angus	7
Balancer	13
Beefmaster	4.07
Brangus	6.3
Braunvieh	7.4
Charolais	9.7
Gelbvieh	13
LimFlex	13
Limousin	13
Maine Anjou	10
MaineTainer	10
Hereford	4.7
Red Angus	13
Salers	1.4
Shorthorn	13
SimAngus	13
Simmental	13
South Devon	1.2
Tarentaise	3.2

Watch the Show-Me-Select Replacement Heifer website for updated requirements. http://agebb.missouri.edu/select/prgmreq.php