Eagles Run Ranch uses BREEDPLAN, a modern genetic evaluation system for beef cattle breeders.
Breedplan offers breeders the potential to accelerate genetic progress in their herds, and to provide objective information on livestock they sell to
registered and commercial breeders.
The Murray Grey Group Breedplan incorporates information from Murray Greys worldwide with the inclusion of Australian, US, Canadian, British and New Zealand Murray Greys. Therefore, Breedplan values allow for the direct comparison of performance recorded Murray Grey animals worldwide as all these animals are analyzed together under the same performance metrics. This analysis and evaluation is based on a wide range of information including the performance of the individual animal and its relatives for a number of traits, the genetic relationships between the traits and the pedigree links between animals and between herds.
A brief word about EPD (Estimated Progeny Difference) and EBV (Estimated Breeding Values) because this can be confusing for many. Both of these measurements estimate the genetic merit of an animal for the same traits. A simple scientific conversion can be used to calculate EBVs to EPDs and vice-versa. We provide links to our Breedplan data for many of our animals on the Eagles Run website but, for those who prefer EPDs, we provide a table in which the scientific conversion formula has been applied.
EBVs and EPDs let breeders compare or rank the superiority of individual animals and provide a prediction of future progeny performance of one individual compared to another individual within a breed for a specific trait. The EBV or EPD is given as a positive or negative value in units of measure for the particular traits. The EBV or EPD values are available for all animals, male and female. EBV or EPD values may be used to directly compare only those animals within a breed. For example, the EBV or EPD values for a Hereford bull may not be compared against the EBV or EPD for a Murray Grey bull.
Breedplan calculates genetic merit for a range of traits including:
As an example, the EPD table below is for one of our herdsires, Lindale Hobo.
Eagles Run Ranch uses 