Selecting the best bull for your beef enterprise is a lot more complicated than getting the winning bid, writing the check, and letting the new bull out of your trailer at home.

Twig Marston, KSU Extension beef specialist, told cattlemen attending a crop and livestock school in Cottonwood Falls, Kan., recently that bull selection requires careful evaluation if the bull is to make a positive impact on your bottom line.

“First, you’d better understand your enterprise’s profit center,” Marston said, “and that means you’d better know where you are and where you want to go with your beef business.” He was talking about such things as cow size, grazing management, and end use of the calves—whether you sell them as weaners, background them a bit, feed them out in a feedlot, or sell them as purebreds.

Marston advised to consider the “total package” of the bull and its source. You need to know the answer to such questions as: What breed will work best for you? What’s the breeder’s reputation? What kind of genetics and expected progeny differences are ideal?

“Breeds are different. Some excel in traits you might need, others do not. You need to evaluate breeds that offer probable genetic advancement on the traits you need in your cows and calf crop,” he said.

Bottomline, match the genetics to your needs and resources.

Breeder reputation plays a role in bull selection, according to Marston. How long has the breeder been in business? Has the herd made steady genetic progress through several generations of cows? What’s the demand for the cattle the breeder produces? What about breeder integrity? Does the breeder offer live guarantees, buy back arrangements, delivery services?

“Remember in buying genetics, 90 percent of all genes are the same among breeds. It’s the 10 percent genetic difference that affects selection criteria,” Marston pointed out. “That’s where the EPDs, the performance data, the genetic defects, hair and hide color, and horned/ polled are expressed.”

Marston said cattlemen can have confidence in EPD figures. “A noted Kansas cattleman, Tom Ohlde, maintained that EPDs can make fools out of liars real quickly,” he joked.

He stressed that while EPDs accurately show genetic differences, the biggest EPD bull or most extreme EPD bull may not be the best bull for a specific enterprise.

Marston offered several reminders for cattlemen to keep in mind when evaluating the relative values of EPDs. First, learn the units of measurements of various EPDs. Some are in pounds. Others are in percentages. Still others in dollars.

Also, remember breed associations can vary in the ways they express EPD, but in recent years most associations have used a base year for EPDs, not a floating average. This makes one years’ EPDs easier to compare with other years.

Another index being used is ERTs—Economically Reliable Traits, which are expressed in percentages. Still another is Selection Index, which is listed in dollars.

Marston showed an example where one bull’s selection for a 15-pound weaning weight advantage would add $360 per year in added genetic income for every 20 cows in the herd.

Another example showed selecting a bull with a five percent difference in calving ease EPD saved $75 per year in calving cost per 20 cows.