Now is the time to make sure all pertinent information is entered into the system, so when it comes time to promote your sale offering, everything is complete and accurate. The week before your sale date is not the time.

One of the most frequently asked questions to the Member Services team is, “Why does my animal have no expected progeny differences (EPDs)?”

There can be a multitude of reasons, but it can usually be solved by looking into the animal further with one of our dedicated Member Services team members.

The obvious first step would be to make sure the animal is registered. EPDs are provided as a service to American Angus Association members and their respective customers for registered animals. 

Once registered, a very common reason the EPD boxes remain empty might be that there has been no performance or phenotypic measurement submitted on the animal. For most traditional traits, collecting and submitting phenotypic measurements such as birth and weaning weights on all your animals in proper contemporary groups is the easiest fix to generate EPDs. 

Whether or not the animal’s parents have true EPDs will also play a role, as it might be an issue with parent-average EPDs. Parent-average EPDs are also referred to as Interim EPDs, and only require the sire and dam to possess true EPDs. Interim EPDs can be calculated on animals that have registered parents, but may be missing necessary information to provide a true EPD. 

Another common reason your animal may not have EPD boxes filled in might be because the calf is alone in a contemporary group. This is common among those producers with a limited number of animals available on their farm or ranch. 

These small groups may fail to meet the requirements of a proper contemporary group simply because only one bull or heifer was born within the required age window. Other contemporary grouping issues could be related to data submission dates, acceptable age ranges for that trait, etc.
Embryo transfer (ET) calves receive a random sample of their genes, half from the sire and half from the donor dam. The recipient female that carries and subsequently raises and weans the ET calf contributes only the environment. Conversely, the donor dam contributes only genetic effects, with no contributions to the maternal environment. 

By tracking the contributions of the registered Angus recipient’s pedigree, the maternal genetic components of the evaluation models can be accounted for. Therefore, ET calves from registered Angus recipient dams allow the potential for the calf’s own performance record to be used in EPD calculations. 

An exception to this includes ultrasound information submitted on an individual ET animal from an unregistered/commercial recipient dam submitted in a proper contemporary group alongside other animals with unregistered/commercial recipient dams. To accurately include performance data on ET calves, it is necessary to characterize the effect the recipient female has had on calf performance. 

Having animals registered with empty EPD boxes remains one of the most frequent questions within the Member Services department. Your Association staff has created a very useful flow chart to better explain why your animal may not have EPDs. 

It can also be found by clicking on the link found at the bottom of pedigree lookup of any registered animal in the registry. This is a front-and-back document; so be sure to print both sides, and keep it close as a resource.

visit www.Angus.org and click through Programs and go here.

Editor’s note: For more information, please contact the Association Member Services Department at 816-383-5100, or email llanders@angus.org.