Direct vs maternal calving ease

Given only one choice, which trait are you most interested? Direct compares the calving ease of the sire while the maternal compares the daughters of the sire. Does it matter?

Not sure why I would only have one choice. But if that was the deal I'd take MCE and breed the semen/bull to cows that do not have any trouble. But why the choice?

Some people pick one over the other. Just wondering when giving only one choice, which do people prefer.

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df wrote:

Some people pick one over the other. Just wondering when giving only one choice, which do people prefer.

Why pick one over the when you can have both? Remember If you never pull a calf you Never have to.

W.T. " If you never pull a calf, you don"t have to" My old Uncle Paul use to say "Fences don't make grass" Mine is "They're not calves, they're hiefer companions" DV, near rolling rocks in water

Dennis Voss wrote:

W.T. " If you never pull a calf, you don"t have to" My old Uncle Paul use to say "Fences don't make grass" Mine is "They're not calves, they're hiefer companions" DV, near rolling rocks in water

from LL...
DV, near rolling rocks in water, one of my more memorable quotes came in 1966 from Don Mercer, founder of Paintrock Angus......."We get out of cattle what we're willing to put into them"....... LL in the vicinity of the unwilling

Dennis Voss wrote:

W.T. " If you never pull a calf, you don"t have to" My old Uncle Paul use to say "Fences don't make grass" Mine is "They're not calves, they're hiefer companions" DV, near rolling rocks in water

I guess I should state that If you set your cattle up for success, then they can succeed.

I won't separate them.
I won't use a bull with high CED epds unless he also has at least breed-average CEM epds - and I usually try to select for the highest CEM I can get in a sire that meets other selection criteria.
I put more emphasis on CEM than I do on WW/YW. I'm breeding for cows, and I want them to be able to calve easily as heifers. Would prefer that I never have to use my chains or calf-puller again.

Maybe you learned folks here can substantiate or debunk the old saw that I keep seeing repeated: that if you continually select for low birthweight over multiple generations, that you lose maternal calving ease.
I know epds are 'expected performance' - and I expect that if I'm selecting for CEM of +10 or higher in every generation, even if CED and BW are above & below breed average, respectively - that resulting heifers retained should be able to calve out with less incidence of dystocia than the average heifer of that breed.

What say ye?

From AAA................

http://www.angus.org/Nce/Documents/BytheNumbers0107.pdf

"Bulls with more favorable CED EPDs tend
to have favorable CEM EPDs also,
although the relationship is not perfect.
CED and CEM EPDs have a positive
genetic correlation (+0.42)."

The top 20 Angus bulls at .9 accuracy for ced
CED.........CEM
15........... 7
14........... 12
14........... 9
13........... 0
13........... 11
13........... 13
12........... 7
12........... 10
12........... 5
12........... 12
11........... 6
11........... 13
11........... 13
11........... 7
11........... 9
11........... 10
11........... 9
11........... 13
11........... 3

what is the acc of CEM of those bulls? I would assume pretty high.

How would todays sires do used on heifers maturing into 1,000 pound cows rather than 1500?

I finally took the time to look up just what CED and CEM were supposed to predict. Some theorital percentage of greater or lessor calving percentage. No specifics of assisted progeny. Maybe there is more information out there, but simply higher is better, was all the explanation I saw.

How am I suppossed to quantify this into meaningful data for my customers to use or myself for that matter?

Please forgive me for my density of thought today, recovering from a concusion, the world is a bit fuzzy.....self inflicted, no angry Anti-revolutionest retaliation or the like.

df wrote:

what is the acc of CEM of those bulls? I would assume pretty high.

almost as high as the CED...ok, df, you`re the resident scientist here...why or what are the maternal differences that make the second bull on the list, mytty in focus, a 14-12....and the 4th bull, gar solution, a 13-0 ?

MKeeney wrote:

df wrote:

what is the acc of CEM of those bulls? I would assume pretty high.

almost as high as the CED...ok, df, you`re the resident scientist here...why or what are the maternal differences that make the second bull on the list, mytty in focus, a 14-12....and the 4th bull, gar solution, a 13-0 ?

The WT . when i looked in the mirror last did stand for weight. For CED that is the calving ease of the bulls calves when they are born. For CEM that is the ability of the bulls daughters to have a calf. The two are usually antagonistic to each other. And that means a bull with a low CEM leaves daughters that have a tough time having there first calf. And a bull with a high CEM leaves daughters that can have a calf of decent size. That is how i understand the two. W.T Nebeker.

W.T wrote:

MKeeney wrote:

df wrote:

what is the acc of CEM of those bulls? I would assume pretty high.

almost as high as the CED...ok, df, you`re the resident scientist here...why or what are the maternal differences that make the second bull on the list, mytty in focus, a 14-12....and the 4th bull, gar solution, a 13-0 ?

The WT . when i looked in the mirror last did stand for weight. For CED that is the calving ease of the bulls calves when they are born. For CEM that is the ability of the bulls daughters to have a calf. The two are usually antagonistic to each other. And that means a bull with a low CEM leaves daughters that have a tough time having there first calf. And a bull with a high CEM leaves daughters that can have a calf of decent size. That is how i understand the two. W.T Nebeker.

Oh I know...but why can mytty make daughters that calve, and solution can`t? or any two calving ease bulls for that matter? pelvic size difference, shape, conformation, muscularity...???

Holy cow Mike! Do you mean we might have to develop an eye for judging cattle base on visual appraisals? Who has time to do that. I want a number that I can look up so I can be a real cattle breeder fast. It's going to get worse before it gets better too. Look at the sale reports and their pictures. These Angus cattle have awful tailhead sets and they are going to be a hard calving bunch. The good news is, they won't last all that long because they'll break down early so at least there's that.

The way I was told years ago was have you ever seen an Elk or a Deer or any wild animal with a high tailhead? Sloped off yes but high? Those are all coyote poop.

Jack, in the neighborhood of coyote poop fix all.

MKeeney wrote:

W.T wrote:

MKeeney wrote:

df wrote:

what is the acc of CEM of those bulls? I would assume pretty high.

almost as high as the CED...ok, df, you`re the resident scientist here...why or what are the maternal differences that make the second bull on the list, mytty in focus, a 14-12....and the 4th bull, gar solution, a 13-0 ?

The WT . when i looked in the mirror last did stand for weight. For CED that is the calving ease of the bulls calves when they are born. For CEM that is the ability of the bulls daughters to have a calf. The two are usually antagonistic to each other. And that means a bull with a low CEM leaves daughters that have a tough time having there first calf. And a bull with a high CEM leaves daughters that can have a calf of decent size. That is how i understand the two. W.T Nebeker.

Oh I know...but why can mytty make daughters that calve, and solution can`t? or any two calving ease bulls for that matter? pelvic size difference, shape, conformation, muscularity...???

We figured that was trying to keep it going. In the seventy's there were a lot of simmis bred where i was and the first cross was not a problem but when the half bloods started to calve the wreck began. I remember the vet said that there was a bump in the pelvis pushing up on many simi heifers and there were others that were wider than they were tall and all had high tail heads. That was a good lesson for a kid never forgot that vet and his words when he said you got to build them to have a calf If you want a live one.

it`s all the AAA board of directors fault Jack...you see, we used to glue hair on their tailheads to give cattle that slanted, high behind, youthful grow look to please them expert university judges like Ritchie, Minish, Parrett, etc...then the AAA board said no more hair glueing, so there was no choice but to breed a good high tail head to please those experts judges...change almost always has consequences

Buy bulls from someone that has a closed herd and hasn't pulled calves for many years...calving difficulties go down dramatically(was my experience).

Don't crossbreed heifers...heterosis starts at conception.

Breed heifers to herd mates...if you follow rule one.

No EPDs were involved in the making of this post.

df wrote:

http://beef.unl.edu/beefreports/symp-1993-22-XIII.shtml

sooooooooooooo? is there an answer in there why one calving ease bull`s daughters calve easy, and another doesn`t?

df wrote:

http://beef.unl.edu/beefreports/symp-1993-22-XIII.shtml

This kind of article makes me mad enough to bite myself. The summary should have read, if you start with your head up your ass and you end with your head in the same place you're going to have problems, but you can still have your job and waste tax payers money and put your name on another article. There is not one thing of value in this article that you could not have gotten from sitting down with a sucsessful long time rancher and listening. What a load of crap.

Small heifers that are not fed enough will have more calving problems. Larger heifers with bigger pelvis's will have bigger calves with more calving problems. In the first study the heifers that were fed the proper amounts still had a 36% dystocia rate? I'd say the problems started long before feed was an issue.

The next study proved that you will have a higher percentage of dystocia and death loss if you use high birth wt epded bulls. WOW

The next group shows the birth wts from 63 to 69 lbs. How on the hell do you have over 30% dystocia rate on a 66 lb calf and a death loss of 8%? The topper though is the 43% scour rate with a 19% death loss in one group. Mind you Ft keogh has enough people hired to baby sit these catlle 24-7.

How can any decent cow man or woman read this and give it any validity?

Jack, in the neighborhood of more rain and Ft. Keogh. RIBBIT, RIBBIT, RIBBIT!

MKeeney wrote:

df wrote:

http://beef.unl.edu/beefreports/symp-1993-22-XIII.shtml

sooooooooooooo? is there an answer in there why one calving ease bull`s daughters calve easy, and another doesn`t?

Because the correlation is not 1.