The American Angus Association released the results of the Fall 2020 National Cattle Evaluation on 5-29-20 and this spreadsheet presents the weekly updated data as of 9-11-20.

May 29, 2020 marked the official release of the $Combined value index that now appears on an AAA pedigree and registration certificate and the introduction of a NEW PAP score EPD where the smaller the EPD value is more desirable.

Use the tabs of the linked spreadsheet to find ORIgen trait leaders for specific traits you are seeking for your program.  Click the link below to download the spreadsheet and study the sorts of the Angus bulls available from ORIgen that include 18 NEW Angus bulls that have joined the ORIgen marketing system since the 2020 ORIgen Sire Directory was released.

This spreadsheet includes the new indexes called $AxH and $AxJ and they offer a wider range of values than some of the existing indexes with the highest values in the +200 range and some bulls with negative values. These indexes will penalize below breed average CED and animals that lack a threshold of RE EPD or have a poor relationship between RE EPD and YH EPD.

For breeding Holstein cows, the intent is to identify moderate frame size calving ease bulls with as much growth and rib eye area as possible.  This spreadsheet has 6 ORIgen sires with top 1% $AxH index values and 33 with top 5% values.

For Jersey cows, the penalty for too much frame size is not included in the prediction with a quest for all the growth and muscle within the calving ease parameters.  This spreadsheet has 4 ORIgen sires with top 1% AxJ index values and 32 with top 5% values.

Correlation of $AxH to $B is estimated to be .67 and to $AxJ it is estimated at .72.

While AAA designed the indexes to identify bulls that they think dairymen should buy for breeding Holstein or Jersey cows, they likely will have their greatest impact in educating seedstock producers regarding the combination of EPD data that gives them the greatest opportunity to sell bulls into this emerging market that has huge upside potential when we think of the potential of breeding 5 to 6 million dairy cows in the US alone that usually take 2.5 services per conception.

The addition of these indexes to the ORIgen weekly spreadsheet update should help our customers use them, if they so desire, to target production for a specific market like breeding dairy cows to beef bulls to improve the contribution of those progeny to the beef supply.