{"id":15477,"date":"2016-08-30T09:04:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T14:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gobrangus.com\/?p=15477"},"modified":"2016-11-17T07:41:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T13:41:41","slug":"contemporary-grouping-101-frontline-beef-producer-fall-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gobrangus.com\/contemporary-grouping-101-frontline-beef-producer-fall-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Contemporary Grouping 101 – FRONTLINE Beef Producer Fall 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"08-30-wb_BPI-cgroups\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Contemporary Grouping 101<\/strong>, by Field Service Representative Lauren Prine<\/p>\n

With the wagon comes the wheels. The ideology of the wheel stands for a practice that has already been set in motion. Here at International Brangus Breeders Association (IBBA), we\u2019re not trying to reinvent our EPD program; we want to improve our practices and data accuracy. IBBA members\u2019 can help by accurately recording and entering contemporary group data.<\/p>\n

Contemporary groups are, \u201ca group of cattle that are of the same breed composition and sex, are similar in age, and have been raised under the same management conditions,\u201d as defined by Beef Improvement Federation. \u201cMore simply put, a contemporary group is a group of animals that have had an equal opportunity to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

The use of contemporary groups helps our industry to progress by keeping records based on factual data, without the influence of personal biases. Sometimes breeders go through the process of making contemporary groups, and are unsatisfied with the outcome. Even if your results are unsatisfactory, don\u2019t skew your data by only recording the calves with the highest performance. By only recording animals with a high genetic performance, breeders create a biased herd evaluation.<\/p>\n

Every calf must have recorded data; even calves born dead must be accurately weighed at birth. Reporting data on all calves will not only help identify poor-producing parents, it will also help establish accuracy. This accuracy will give both the dam and sire credit for their genetic merit, of which they are deserving. As more data is available on any given animal (eg. dam, sire, etc.), the EPDs improve in accuracy. If both the dam\u2019s and sire\u2019s genetic evaluations have been recorded, the calf is likely to receive more credit. Contemporary groups are set up to create the most unbiased and most uniform data available.<\/p>\n

Understand that calves with unequal environmental conditions must be assigned to different contemporary groups. It is important to understand that groups can only decrease in size. As calves grow older, groups will decline in size, based on factors such as breeder management practices, self-reported grouping, injury, sickness, and even death. Carefully map out a planned process to ensure you don\u2019t create too many or too few groups. Also, keep in mind, if you don\u2019t have enough animals to compare against each other, your data can be overly inflated or underestimated.<\/p>\n

Here is a list of the information to be included in each type of contemporary group, in chronological order:<\/p>\n