To: Justin Atwell

From: Dorothy Floren DF

Logan Berg LB
Jenna Wiersma JW
Subject: Progression of reaching a method to produce a higher accuracy in predicting birth
weight in the North Dakota State University Angus Cattle Herd
Date: 03/30/17

Intro
This memo responds to your request on the progress of our research for analysis of calf
birth weights for English 324. As you may already know, our project is an assessment and
estimation to predict future calf birth weights from two parent beef cattle (1 beef cow, 1 beef
bull), which we presented in our proposal on March 7, 2017. Our research can help fill the gap of
farmers and ranchers trying to predict what is the best match for pairing one cow to one bull, in
which the weight helps estimate the odds of that calf surviving birthing and growing to become a
full adult. As you already know, we have records from the past 6 years of the NDSU Angus
Cattle Herd, which we have been analyzing and processing to find heritabilities for heifers and
bulls. In this proposal, we will discuss the completed research that we have found, and also what
is still needed to be finished. We are currently right on track to turn our finished research project
on time.

Completed Research
The data collected for the current analysis was collected continuously from past years up
until current birthing seasons. This was done to ensure that the data sample had multiple
offspring from each reproducing dam and sire. Each spreadsheet is separated by year and then
further organized by sire or dam and grouped together to display the calving history. Once the
data was collectively organized by parent cow, analysis can be run on the information. This
allows an average to be found for each parent, along with a standard deviation. This
demonstrates the weight that can be expected for a particular dam or sires future offspring.

Remaining Research
Nowthataveragebirthweightsproducedbyeachsireanddamhavebeencalculated,
thesecanbeanalyzedagainsttheactualbirthweightofeachcalf.Eachcalfsbirthweightwill
besubtractedfromtheaverageofthedamandfromtheaverageofthesire.Fromthere,wewill
takeanaverageofthedifferencesbetweentheexpectedweightasgivenbythedamsorsires
averageandtheactualweightofthecalf.Bycomparingthesevalues,wecanattemptto
determineaheritabilitybetweenadamandhercalfandasireandhiscalf.

Conclusion
As the report has updated you on the current status of our research, we will continue
working to finish analyzing our data, and complete our report which will help identify the
variability and accuracy of estimating birth weights of calves at NDSU. As stated before we will
make the research deadline of April 20th, 2017. Hopefully, our research will provide an accurate
method for estimating birth weight of beef calves in order to help farmers and ranchers make
breeding decisions in their own herds to optimize calf performance.