You are leaning on the fence with a sale book open, staring at a wall of columns: CED, BW, WW, Marb, $M. You know some of them. The rest just dare you to guess.
This is the label nobody printed on the page. Every number, one tight line: what it means, which way you want it, and the catch that trips people up. Keep it next to the book and read across.
Two things first. Higher is not always better. On many of these the number you want is the low one, and on a couple there is no “better,” only “fits my country.” Those surprises are called out where they land. Second, no breeder works these numbers out, not us and not the seller. The American Angus Association runs them across the whole breed every week, folding in DNA, and publishes them. We read them. Every definition below is the Association’s; see the angus.org EPD and $Value definitions.
An EPD is a forecast about a bull’s future calves, read as a difference against another Angus bull, not a measurement of the bull himself. New to that idea? Start with What an EPD Is, in Plain English, then come back here.
Calving
The numbers that decide whether a calf hits the ground alive and whether you sleep through calving season.
- CED, Calving Ease Direct. How easily this bull’s own calves are born without pulling. Higher is easier. The catch: this is the calf’s ease of birth. Lean on CED, not birth weight alone, for a heifer bull.
- BW, Birth Weight. How heavy his calves hit the ground, in pounds. Context, not a straight up-or-down. Lower eases calving, so it matters most on heifers. The catch: chase it too low and you give up growth. One input, not the whole call.
- CEM, Calving Ease Maternal. How easily his daughters calve as first-calf heifers. Higher is easier. The catch: this is about the daughter’s first calf, not his calves. Different trait from CED, easy to mix up.
Growth and feed
Pounds and the feed it takes to put them on. Most of the money on a terminal calf lives here, and so do the hidden costs.
- WW, Weaning Weight. Growth from birth to weaning, in pounds. Higher. The catch: more growth drags mature cow size up with it, and a bigger cow eats more every day of her life (Bullock).
- YW, Yearling Weight. Growth out to a year, in pounds. Higher. The catch: same pull as weaning weight. Push it hard and you build a bigger, hungrier cow herd over time.
- RADG, Residual Average Daily Gain. How well his calves gain after weaning on set feed. This is feed efficiency. Higher. The catch: read it next to dry matter intake for the whole feed picture.
- DMI, Dry Matter Intake. How much feed his calves eat after weaning, in pounds a day. Lower is better, they eat less. The catch: one of the surprises, down is the good direction. Balance it against gain so you are not breeding cattle that eat and grow little.
- YH, Yearling Height. Frame, or height at a year, in inches. Context. The catch: taller usually tracks bigger mature size, so read it with your feed and country in mind.
- SC, Scrotal Circumference. Scrotal size in centimeters, tied to earlier puberty in his daughters. Higher. The catch: it looks like a growth number but it is really a fertility signal, working through the daughters.
Maternal and fertility
The numbers that build a cow herd that breeds back and stays. Slow to move, but this is where a cow-calf man makes or loses his living.
- HP, Heifer Pregnancy. The odds his daughters breed and calve as two-year-olds, in percent. Higher. The catch: it is low-heritability and moves slow, but it is the payoff trait if you keep your own replacements.
- Milk, Maternal Milk. Pounds of his daughters’ calves’ weaning weight that come from the daughters’ milk and mothering. Higher on the page, but there is a best amount, not a most. The catch: this is the headline trap. More milk means the cow needs more feed. In short-feed country she milks the condition off her own back and fails to breed back (Bullock). The right level is what your grass can carry, not the biggest number. See the cow that milks the fat off her back.
- MW, Mature Weight. How big his daughters get, in pounds. Context. Lower means a cheaper cow to keep. The catch: a bigger cow eats more every day, so this number drives your feed bill through $EN.
- MH, Mature Height. How tall his daughters get, in inches. Context. The catch: it tracks mature size and, through it, feed cost.
- $EN, Cow Energy Value. Dollars of feed saved per cow per year in his daughters. Higher. The catch: a cost-savings number, so read it beside Milk and the maternal traits. Do not starve milk and pounds chasing a cheap cow.
Udder, feet, longevity, and temperament
The newer functional numbers. They decide whether a cow lasts, whether her bag and feet hold up, and whether she is safe to work. This group hides most of the direction surprises, so read the “which way” carefully.
- Teat, Teat Size. Higher EPD means smaller teats, which is what you want. Higher is better. The catch: the direction fools people. A high number means smaller, sounder teats a calf can latch onto.
- UDDR, Udder Suspension. Higher EPD means a tighter, better-attached udder. Higher is better. The catch: same surprise as teat. High is the good direction, a bag that stays up where it belongs.
- Claw, Claw Set. Lower EPD means a more ideal claw set. Lower is better. The catch: this flips the usual habit. Down is the good direction on this foot trait.
- Angle, Foot Angle. Lower EPD means a more ideal foot angle. Lower is better. The catch: same as claw set, lower is favorable. Feet keep a cow in the herd, so these two matter more than their newness suggests.
- FL, Functional Longevity. How many calves his daughters produce by six years of age. Higher. The catch: slow to move, but exactly where a number earns its keep, because you cannot see “stays in the herd” in a young animal’s build.
- Doc, Docility. The temperament of his yearlings. Higher is calmer. The catch: calmer cattle are safer to work and research ties temperament to performance, so it pays both ways.
- PAP, Pulmonary Arterial Pressure. High-altitude tolerance, in millimeters of mercury. Lower. The catch: it matters mainly at high elevation. If you are not up high, it is a niche number for you.
- HS, Hair Shed. How early his calves shed the winter coat. Lower means they shed earlier, which is favorable. The catch: earlier shedding tracks with tolerating heat and fescue, and with holding performance through summer.
Carcass
What the calf is worth hanging on the rail. This is the end product, and even here “more” has a ceiling.
- CW, Carcass Weight. Hot carcass weight of his calves, in pounds. Context, higher up to a point. The catch: too heavy gets docked on the grid. Up is not always better here.
- Marb, Marbling. Intramuscular fat, which sets quality grade. Higher. The catch: this is the number driving quality-grade premiums, the Choice, Prime, and Certified Angus Beef money.
- RE, Ribeye Area. Ribeye size, in square inches. A red-meat yield number. Higher. The catch: it is your yield trait, the pounds of salable muscle.
- Fat, Fat Thickness. External fat over the twelfth rib, in inches. Lower is leaner, which is favorable. The catch: another surprise, down is the good direction. But some finish is needed to grade, so do not chase it to zero.
After the columns come the dollars
The last stretch of the page is usually the $Value indexes: $M, $W, $EN, $F, $G, $B, $C. Each is a dollar figure that bundles many of the EPDs above into one score aimed at a particular way of making money, so you do not have to weigh a dozen columns in your head. This guide does not re-teach them. For what is inside a dollar index and how it is built, see what’s inside a dollar value. For picking the one that matches your operation, see which dollar value fits your operation.
Read the page this way and the wall of columns turns into plain questions: born easy, grows well, eats little, breeds back, lasts, grades. Settle which direction you want on each before you look at the size of the number.
Related: What an EPD Is, in Plain English · What’s Inside a Dollar Value · The Cow That Milks the Fat Off Her Back · back to the reading guides.
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