To assist its membership and commercial cattle producers with sire selection decisions, the American Gelbvieh Association (AGA) has unveiled its first-of-a-kind Feedyard Merit EPD. This new EPD consolidates traditional weaning weight and yearling weight EPDs and provides a genetically-derived economic value for feedyard performance.

"In developing the Gelbvieh Feedyard Merit EPD, we followed the real-world path of transforming genotypic differences into phenotypic differences, then took the next step from phenotypic to economic differences," said Don Schiefelbein, AGA Executive Director. The Feedyard Merit EPD is expressed as a dollar value per head, depicting the ability of a parent to produce progeny that will excel in important feedyard performance traits, such as average daily gain and feed efficiency.

As with other EPDs, the Feedyard Merit EPD may be used to estimate how future progeny of one animal will compare to progeny of another animal within the same breed. In this particular case, the performance measured is the dollar value associated with differences in feedyard performance.

The EPD is not designed to predict actual feedlot performance levels, but can be used to compare sires, based on estimated progeny performance differences when progeny are sent to a feedyard. For example, a bull with a Feedyard Merit EPD of $15 is expected to sire calves that will earn $15 more during a typical feeding phase compared to calves sired by a bull with an Feedyard Merit EPD of $0.

The Feedyard Merit EPD should be used to predict economic differences in feedyard performance; however it is just one component of a balanced selection program. Astute managers always select sires based on a balance of economically important traits.

"AGA's goal is provide economic indices for all three key areas of cattle production: cow/calf, feeder and carcass," states Schiefelbein. The new Feedyard Merit EPD completes the second phase of fulfilling this goal. AGA released its innovative Grid Merit EPD in 2001. The AGA plans to work aggressively towards developing a Cow/Calf Merit EPD in the coming year.

The American Gelbvieh Association's Feedyard Merit EPD is currently available. For more information on the AGA's innovative genetic evaluation programs, contact the AGA office at 303-465-2333 or visit the AGA website at www.gelbvieh.org. ©