Angus Underground

Solutions From the Field

Episode Notes

It’s a warm welcome this week for return guest and friend of the show, Landi McFarland Livingston, owner and operator of Hoover Angus in Ellston, Iowa. Landi talks about Hoover’s history of over 95 years in the biz and the upcoming sales she is excited about before getting into the main topic regarding the new indexes and EPDs. A few of the questions discussed include: are EPDs reflective of what we are observing on the ranch? Do we have enough data that went into formulating the EPDs and most importantly, how do we get more phenotypic data submitted to build accuracy?

At the end, the guys promote a very special event for charity, the 4th Annual Dotson Christmas Charity Raffle.

Mentioned in this Episode:

MontanaRanchAngus.com

BruinRanch.com

ShadyBrookAngus Farm.com

Facebook @AngusUnderground

Instagram @AngusUnderground

Contact AngusUnderground@Yahoo.com or call (406) 210-1366 if you are interested in becoming a sponsor for Angus Underground.

GeneBrokers.com

Hoover Angus

The 4th Annual Dotson Christmas Charity Raffle — donate on VENMO at @greg-dotson-9 

Quotes:

• “We're excited to be counting down to 100 years in the Angus business.” — Landi [9:07]
• “The goal of all these new traits, these new EPDs, these new indexes should be aimed at providing accurate selection tools for our commercial bull customers, but, what we’re seeing on the paper does not necessarily translate to what we are seeing at the ranch or the farm.” [12:57]
• “As accuracy goes down, and as phenotypic data goes down, we need to be more cautious.” — Landi [19:22]
• “I feel genomics are weighted too heavily in the genetic evaluation.” — Landi [20:32]
• “We can never have too much. We need our data and we need it from everyone.” — Landi [45:11]
• “I encourage you to collect and measure and accurately turn the data because we as a breed cannot get stronger and better unless we’re all pulling in the same direction and turning in the data.” [47:08]
• “If we want accurate predictions, we've got to give them the data.” [51:04]
• “If you consider yourself a breeder, if you consider yourself a positive contributor to the gene pool of beef cattle in America, and this is no matter if you have 10 head or 1,000 head, then “we,” meaning the American Angus Association, need data from you.” [1:29:11]