Reduce Wrong Decisions with Performance Programs Data with Esther Tarpoff

It would be nice to know you're making the right decisions, but there's always risk. Usually, only hindsight tells us whether it was the right decision or not. However, in making genetic selection decisions, there are tools from the American Angus Association that are designed to help. 

The Association's Performance Programs Department helps take large data sets and turn them into usable information to help move your operation forward. 

In today's episode, Kasey chats with Esther Tarpoff, director of Performance Programs, about:

• How the Performance Programs department is relevant to commercial cattlemen
• How phenotypic data adds accuracy to genetic selection tools
• How recordkeeping helps save you money
• How to find high-performing maternal genetics
• Questions you should ask your seedstock supplier 
• Much more!

More resources

Find more information to make Angus work for you in the Angus Beef Bulletin and ABB EXTRA. Make sure you're subscribed! Sign up here to the print Angus Beef Bulletin and the digital Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. Have questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you! Contact our team at abbeditorial@angus.org.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to Angus at Work. I'm your host, Kasey Brown. This morning, we are in 3201 Frederick Avenue, and I am joined today by Esther Tarpoff. Hello, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.

Esther Tarpoff:

Thanks for having me.

Kasey Brown:

All right. So, most of our listeners may know you as Esther McCabe, so tell us your big news.

Esther Tarpoff:

So big news is, is that I got married in November and so I guess that means I have a new last name now.

Kasey Brown:

Right? It does take a very long time to get used to. So tell us your background with the beef industry and then we'll move into the association.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, so a little bit about my background is that I'm originally from an Angus seedstock operation in southeast Kansas. Grew up heavily involved in the National Junior Angus Association, as well as obviously the Kansas Junior Angus Association, and really had the opportunity through the Junior Angus Association to be fairly involved. Spent some time serving as Miss American Angus as well. Had a year of that. That was a lot of fun. Learned a lot, met a lot of people, and then ended up going to school at Kansas State University. I did all three of my degrees there, spent a lot of time in Manhattan, and then after I finished school, ended up here at the association.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. What was your doctorate in?

Esther Tarpoff:

So it was an animal science, specifically looking at more of the data analytics perspective, so large data sets, analyzing them, and then really took an extension approach to it. So it was very user-friendly information that went back out to producers that are using it today.

Kasey Brown:

Awesome. So you take all these large sets of data and turn them into tangible chunks, which is awesome. So tell us how that translates into your position here at the American Angus Association.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, so I am currently serving as the director of Performance Programs, which performance programs, probably the biggest program it has is AHIR, the Angus Herd Improvement Records. And so that's where all the data would come in, birth weights, weaning weights, foot scores, you name it. Those phenotypes come in, and we work on going through that data and then working with AGI to, at the end of the day, have those genetic selection tools like EPDs and dollar values.

Kasey Brown:

Awesome. So with all of these data points, they are submitted by seedstock producers, so how are they relevant for our commercial customers?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, so we're very fortunate here at the Association to have seedstock members that have been dedicated to data collection since the start, right? AHIR came on board late in the 1950s and really, at that time, it wasn't real popular to have things like performance testing and you can go down that avenue, but we won't rabbit hole there. But we think about how far we've come in that time, with the dedication from our members to that data collection, and that really goes full circle to then, again, the selection tools that we have for the commercial cattlemen. So if you're a producer going to a sale, maybe you're going to buy a bull, and you look in the sale catalog and you see the numbers for EPDs, birth weight, weaning weight, you look at those dollar values, those genetic selection tools that we have are all backed by those phenotypes that come in from our association members.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. And I talked with Kelli a few weeks ago about how phenotype and genotype are married together. So you're dealing more with the phenotypic data, right? So tell us some of the data points that get submitted to your department.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah. So, we'd have a wide array of them. So if we think about more of the, we'll call them traditional type data points, you'd have things like birth weight taken within 24 hours of that calf being born, something like that. Did you have to assist that calf coming out or did it come out on its own just fine? Weaning weight, taken around that time of weaning, yearling weight, mature weights on cows, to things that are maybe a little bit newer, things like those foot scores, claw and angle, hair shed, when it would take in the springtime. Things like carcass ultrasound data. While that's not newer, still very relevant and very important, as well as actual harvest carcass data that comes in.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. And you said those get turned into EPDs. So a big part of this is whole herd reporting. Correct? How does that translate into really giving your whole herd the credit they deserve?

Esther Tarpoff:

Probably backup just a smidge bit on that. So the Association traditionally has been on what you would consider a calf basis of reporting. So not necessarily a requirement to report every single calf that was born in a traditional sense. Since 2012, MaternalPlus came on board as a whole herd reporting system. And then fall of 2020, we included inventory reporting with that. So for the last several years, a decade at this point, we've had a whole herd reporting system in a sense. But really, why that data's important is that it takes into account every single female in the herd, right? So you have your list of females of here's who was here at the start of the year, and over the course of 12 months, what happens to that female, right? Does she have a calf, does she not? Does she leave the herd? All of those data points become really important, again, to not bias the data, right?

So we can look at that from a female perspective of making sure even the females that were open or even the females that maybe she had a calf and you lost it in the blizzard, making sure we give the right credit to where the credit's due for that female, but as well as on the calf side, you get to weaning and you go ahead and weigh all those calves and submit all those weights, right? It's not just the ones that are in the front pasture that we're really, really proud of. It's also those ones that maybe they didn't do quite as well, but they're still a part of that right contemporary group. And so making sure we get the full spectrum, again, to really giving the correct credit and not having any bias in that data.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. So you mentioned MaternalPlus. I was here when it was very new. That was when I was very new. So tell us a little bit about how it came to be and how it's changed through the years.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, great question. So MaternalPlus, again, came on board in about 2012. And at that time, again, I wasn't here, but what I understand is that there were discussions being had about, we talk about the maternal cow, how do we describe her? How do we put something that's maybe rather subjective into something that's a little bit more objective? How do we wrap our hands around something like maternal traits? And again, going back to the traditional sense of records that have been submitted at the association, it was more on a calf basis, not necessarily on a whole herd female basis.

So what that starts to do is it's pretty easy to go back and say, well, those females that were open or those calves that died, I'll come back and get them later. Well, later doesn't come around, because it's not always a priority. And so what that does is it starts to create some gaps in the data. So as we think about things, there's been a lot of discussion about what AGI is working on with functional longevity. Having the kind of records that come from MaternalPlus that again, you start to eliminate those gaps, because you tell us who's open, you tell us who left the herd and why they left the herd. It starts to fill that in, and it gives more of a solid foundation for things like functional longevity.

Kasey Brown:

And longevity is an absolutely economically relevant trait, but it's so hard to quantify. So that's really cool of this will help with that. How do MaternalPlus and AHIR, how do they work together? How are they separate? How do those work?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yep. So MaternalPlus is going to be a program that's inside of AHIR. And as MaternalPlus stands today, we mentioned it's had some changes since it's inception a decade ago, but the way it stands today is that it lives kind of as a level two of our inventory reporting program. So first year members come into inventory reporting is really getting cow herds cleaned up and telling us who's here, who's not, let's get your active list. And then the following year at re-enrollment, if they want to move to that MaternalPlus level, they have the opportunity with submission of a few extra records to meet those qualifications.

Kasey Brown:

Gotcha. And MaternalPlus is almost like a branding tool, right? You can put it in your sale books. How is that used?

Esther Tarpoff:

Branding tools is a really good way to put it. There's marketing materials available. If you're one of those members that's really dedicated to that data collection and making sure that you have the whole herd reported and not having the bias in that data, there's materials for sale catalogs, whether it be a quarter page, full page, even just including the badge that you'll see if you look up females that are enrolled in the program. So if you're looking at a herd and you see that logo, if you look on our EPD pedigree lookup page, on each of those females, you'll also see that badge. And so again, it's just designating that those are herds that are really dedicated to that full herd data collection.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. And so that could be useful for herds that are looking to buy replacement heifers or really focus on that maternal side.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yep.

Kasey Brown:

Wow, that's great. So I know this is a really busy time for you. You said annual enrollments. Can you talk us through how that works and kind of the timelines for those?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, absolutely. So in inventory reporting, we have two enrollment periods a year. And so for our primarily spring calving operations, it's right now, so that's obviously going to be the bulk of our members are enrolled in this November to January time period. And then in May to July is where we target those primarily fall calving operations, right? So if you primarily calve in the fall, you would want to enroll in that summer May to July time period. But what that enrollment really looks like is the data that you submit as members throughout the entire year, right, so those calving books records that you record and those weaning weights that you go ahead and submit after you've taken them, or those heifer breeding records that you submit after the breeding season's over, all of that works to accumulate towards meeting the requirements.

As data comes in throughout the year, we get to the enrollment period, and it's really working through who do I have left? Who got missed? Maybe it's those females that you miss getting pulled out of there, maybe it's the ones that lost their calves or came up open and you forgot to report that. So all that data that comes in throughout the year is obviously all working towards those requirements. And then ideally, you get to enrollment time and it's just cleaning up those loose ends and saying, all right, here's who's on the operation today, and you have those females for the next 12 months to account for.

Kasey Brown:

How does having those cleaned up records, how does that help your operation?

Esther Tarpoff:

So those cleaned up records, a couple of different perspectives. One, in MaternalPlus, there's some additional herd reports that are going to be produced. So keeping track of every female in the herd, right? Has she been productive? Is there a female that's hanging out in there that maybe you didn't realize hasn't had a calf in two years, or maybe she hasn't taken a calf through weaning in two years and does she need to stay? Should she go? There's also some other reports that'll break down looking at it by cow age, why are females leaving? Are you having a big fallout on, say, your three-year-olds for breed back? Right? Is there something nutritionally that needs to change? Are you having maybe temperament issues showing up at some point? Or are there feed issues that are showing up as those cows get older? And again, it'll break them out by age and why those cows are leaving. But again, it's all based on the information that you put into it, to be able to generate those reports.

Kasey Brown:

So again, it's taking lots of data points and making them tangible and useful. So let's talk about feet scores. So I know that has been a somewhat recent addition. Can you talk to us just how many more people are getting on board with that and how have those numbers of submissions increased?

Esther Tarpoff:

So maybe a little bit of history about the foot scores, claw and angle EPDs, before we get into where we're at today with them. The research for those would have really began with heavy data collection in 2015. And fast forward to 2019, these EPDs were released into production. So what that means is that then they were showing up in the National Cattle Evaluation on a weekly basis, and being updated with information that came in each week. With these foot EPDs, being the claw and angle, so heritability for each of those is sitting at about 0.25. So that's going to be something that's similar to, say, weaning weight or post-weaning gain.

So again, there's a heritable component to it, right? There's a genetic component. We can use these tools to select on these traits and make progress. So if we fast forward to where we are today, I actually just looked at where we're sitting currently for the National Cattle Evaluation. And for the combined claw and angle, we're sitting at about 361,000 scores that are running in that evaluation for combined claw and angle. So figure about 50/50 for each of those particular traits.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. So it's definitely an example of breeders know this has been an issue. They want to be part of the solution. That's really cool.

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah. And looking at just fiscal year to fiscal year increases, fiscal year 2021 compared to 2022, we saw about a 35% increase in terms of the number of scores that came in from members. So again, we're seeing more of those foot scores come in and we're seeing them not only on those yearling animals, but on those mature females as well that are staying back and retained in the herd.

Kasey Brown:

We know those are incredibly useful, especially for our commercial producers, because cows have got to walk everywhere. We've got to build good cattle from the feet up. So are those one of the more recent data points that you're collecting, or how has that changed?

Esther Tarpoff:

Those EPDs went into production in 2019, so really, we're just coming up on the fourth year that they've been in the production setting, right? So obviously, we all know new traits come on board. One takes time to learn about them, right? How do we use this tool? What does this tool mean? What does it look like? And some of that happens in that research phase as well, but once it's showing up on a registration paper, starts to maybe draw a little bit more attention to it, right? And so as we're entering into this fourth year, just like we saw last year with the increase, we do have more members submitting foot scores and getting more comfortable with that scoring system, and we've been working really as the association to help provide some more educational materials. Even things like walking through a how-to video. You're walking out there into, say, the lot to score, what do we expect to see, right? What do we expect the process to look like? And so doing some of those tutorials alongside that as well.

Kasey Brown:

Perfect. Where can breeders find some of those educational materials?

Esther Tarpoff:

If members go to Angus University and then go to the tool section and then drop down to AHIR, you'll be able to find specific videos for not only foot scoring, but teat and udder scoring, soon to be hair shed scoring, body condition scoring, kind of more of those subjective-type traits, right, that you're looking at and scoring, trying to have some objectivity to those as well. Maybe trying is not the right word there, but providing some objectivity to those.

Kasey Brown:

Listeners, we can put links to those in the show notes, so that way you've got all resources at your fingertips. So, some of those other traits you talked about, udder scoring and hair shedding, how have you seen an uptick of submissions on those kind of traits?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, so if we start with hair shed, so hair shed's going to be the newest production EPD that's been released from the association. So hair shed, a little bit about that trait. One, it's looking at how early in the season those females are shedding that winter hair coat, right? So we think about things like heat tolerance and cattle that are going to be grazing toxic fescue, having the ability to shed that winter hair coat has a huge influence, it's no secret about it. And so being able to, again, quantify that and to scores to be able to have a selection tool for it, we've seen quite a bit of uptick with hair shed. Again, though, that's a trait that has a limited availability to be able to score. So it's really during that April to June time period.

Again, whenever you see the most shedding in your herd, the most variation, is when you'd want to score that. Now, if we look at something like our teat size and our utter suspension, those are traits that are still in the research phase. So having the opportunity to collect that data now, be a part of the early data collection to help shape that research, members have that opportunity right now. We're still in the data collection phase. I know AGI has worked some on teat and udder, but we're still in the data collection phase before we move that into a true research-type EPD.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. So would it behoove a commercial producer to ask their seedstock supplier what kind of data are you submitting to the Association? Are they paying attention to these?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. And yeah, I mean, taking a look at what phenotypes are going in from that particular member, right? Are they helping to inform that National Cattle Evaluation, those EPDs that we see on that particular animal? Other phenotypes behind it, are there genotypes behind it, right? Do they use genotypes as well, or that DNA testing, alongside those phenotypes? And I will say in the last maybe 18 months or so, I can't remember exactly when it went in, if members look up animals on EPD pedigree lookup, underneath the EPDs, you'll see a list of phenotypic traits that have been submitted for that animal. So again, drawing more attention to what phenotypes are coming in and really trying to highlight that.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. So it gives opportunities for breeders to know just how much of the big picture they're paying attention to. That's really cool. Yeah. And you already mentioned how looking at these phenotypic data and the genotypic data helps reduce resource waste, and don't feed cow you don't need to kind of deal, especially as feed prices are skyrocketing. What should commercial producers know about how performance programs department is working for them?

Esther Tarpoff:

If there's probably one takeaway and maybe one takeaway is a little dangerous, right, then that's maybe trying to make them-

Kasey Brown:

We can do three.

Esther Tarpoff:

As we think about really why does what a seedstock producer spends time doing, right, why does going out there and taking those birth weights or taking those weaning weights and submitting them to the association, putting in the time and effort to go take foot scores? I mean, it does take time, it takes effort, and it takes a committed amount of, I'm going to say time and effort, to be able to go and do that, right? So why does that matter to the commercial producer? Thinking about these genetic selection tools, the whole purpose of them is to be able to select for the next generation.

We want to do that with as much accuracy as what we can, and also really with as little risk as what we can. And those two kind of go hand in hand, right? If you go back and you listen to the podcast that you did with Kelli and talking a little bit about that, but having the more information that we can behind those selection tools, again, it's going to decrease the risk of really making the wrong decisions, right? Doesn't necessarily mean we always make the right one, but it does help to decrease the risk of making the wrong one. So, again, why does it matter? Having that information behind those genetic selection tools makes them better tools.

Kasey Brown:

I love that. That is great. This is a risky business, agriculture is, but I love it helps not make the wrong one.

Esther Tarpoff:

As best we can.

Kasey Brown:

Right. Awesome. Well, listeners, I will put some resources to learn more about the Performance Programs department in the show notes. But before we wrap up, we all know the cattle business is really a people business, so I'd like to end with some good news. Would you mind sharing something professional, personal, or both?

Esther Tarpoff:

Yeah. So boy, there's a lot of different things that could be shared with this, but if we think about it, we've talked about performance programs, let's look at something that's in performance programs that's good. We mentioned early on that inventory reporting, we're in that enrollment season. We saw good enrollments. We saw several new members come in and want to join inventory reporting, and we're excited to continue to see the growth of that program.

Kasey Brown:

Awesome. Well, listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. If you want resources about performance programs, check the show notes. Also, you'll find information about it in the Angus Beef Bulletin and the Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA, and you'll find information on how to subscribe to both of those publications also in the show notes. If you have any questions or comments, please let us know at ABBeditorial@angus.org. And as always, we'd love if you would rate and leave a review on the podcast, so other profit-minded cattlemen can find this as well. Thank you for listening, and this has been Angus at Work.