RCD, Thanks for your input into this discussion. To answer your question, while I do buy registered Hereford bulls, my cows are commercial cows and I don't/can't register calves from them. I did purchase two registered bred heifers, and did register their two heifer calves this past spring but nothing so far on U070 calves. I also use a homegrown bull from my "best" 1200 lb/high weaning wt percent cow and previous Huth bull T021.

As my steers are sold to folks who will evaluate them off of the grill rather than in a show ring, I am only interested in traits which are important in my forage based, low input (I like to think of it as a bovine "self service"), process them off of grazing corn at 13 months system.  These are mostly CED, MM, SC (for fertility), REA and Fat(lean).

Almost all heifers are retained right now as I am growing my herd. And eventually by breeding to better bulls, I will limit herd size by selling my older cows either for slaugthter or as bred females to someone getting started. This way I will gradually improve my genetics toward the smaller cow size and other traits that improve my end product and carrying capacity/output.

I realize the EPD accuracy on my bulls is low and will stay low. However by purchasing bulls from Jerry who does report good/accurate peer group data on large enough groups so that the data is relevant I think a combination of EPDs and Jerry's recommendations make up for "low accuracy". Huth also raises bulls to work on grass for commercial beef producers, not the show ring, and under Wisconsin conditions similar to my own.  

Except he is a lot closer to Green Bay than I am.  Go Pack!

Jim at Dawn