Angus doing what Angus do best.

Breeding Angus for what Angus do best. Why do "breeders" attempt to make Angus something different. My reasoning from commercial days wanted Angus in the mix as they wintered well, gave me a higher percentage of weaned calves and bred back more consistently. The race for more has certainly lost sight of the economic traits Angus can contribute. An old horse trainer told me once, "There's just so much juice in the lemon". New gadgets and bells and whistles takes it toll. If terminal cattle are your objective, plenty of alternatives are out there. And you can get some free heterosis. EPD's, indexes have gone a long way to wrecking beef cattle genetics. The dairy industry has been there for sometime. The American dairy cow has a productive life of 1.8 lactations. Is this the goal the beef industry?

SOWBOY wrote:

Breeding Angus for what Angus do best. Why do "breeders" attempt to make Angus something different. My reasoning from commercial days wanted Angus in the mix as they wintered well, gave me a higher percentage of weaned calves and bred back more consistently. The race for more has certainly lost sight of the economic traits Angus can contribute. An old horse trainer told me once, "There's just so much juice in the lemon". New gadgets and bells and whistles takes it toll. If terminal cattle are your objective, plenty of alternatives are out there. And you can get some free heterosis. EPD's, indexes have gone a long way to wrecking beef cattle genetics. The dairy industry has been there for sometime. The American dairy cow has a productive life of 1.8 lactations. Is this the goal the beef industry?

oh no, I totally disagree...breeders, not epds, have wrecked havoc upon the breeds; just as they did before epds...epds and indexes are the best tools ever to sort the aftermath; since saying Angus, Hereford, Charolais is meaningless as to type, only a color....but that`s ok; those who wish to breed BREEDS, only have to create something with enough consistency over enough years, that their cattle type can be described by name{breed/line/strain} Wye, Shoshone, Gardiner Angus etc denote a type, and an performance level because of years of a continual direction...to have your name denote a type is a accomplishment beyond breeds...epds define the level of certain production traits more accurately than anything ever before; and define a herd level as well...

No Mike, I think that Preston firmly established that you hate epds over on 5 bar x when I was accused of being your surrogate.

This is kind of like the guns kill people argument, or you can have my epd when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers...