Seedstock
The MSU Beef Center maintains a leading registered purebred Angus herd for teaching students, use in research projects and demonstration in outreach events. Select breeding stock are merchandised annually through public programs or sales.
An Angus Herd Built on Spartan Discipline
We do not chase fads, hair shows, or the highest across the board percentiles. We are carefully building a “no holes” female base and creating balanced-trait Angus sires. Although our approach is multifaceted, it is complicated. Our selection, however, is methodical and requires committed discipline. We start by being snobs about the sires we use within our herd. We perform selection based on 20 Expected Progeny Difference (EPD) traits and 3 EPD indexes that we believe are economically relevant to a commercial cattlemen’s bottom line. We make sure these established elite sires have high accuracy data to increase consistency and predictability. We further refine selections based on phenotype, structure, and functionality. We select heifers based on these same traits, as well as being born at the beginning of their calving season. We are unmerciful in culling cows on disposition, udder quality, and structure. We only retain females that become pregnant within our 50-day breeding season – absolutely, no excuses. In other words, we select our seedstock exactly how a profit-minded commercial cattle producer would want us to.
An Angus Herd Built on Spartan Discipline
We do not chase fads, hair shows, or the highest across the board percentiles. We are carefully building a “no holes” female base and creating balanced-trait Angus sires. Although our approach is multifaceted, it is complicated. Our selection, however, is methodical and requires committed discipline. We start by being snobs about the sires we use within our herd. We perform selection based on 20 Expected Progeny Difference (EPD) traits and 3 EPD indexes that we believe are economically relevant to a commercial cattlemen’s bottom line. We make sure these established elite sires have high accuracy data to increase consistency and predictability. We further refine selections based on phenotype, structure, and functionality. We select heifers based on these same traits, as well as being born at the beginning of their calving season. We are unmerciful in culling cows on disposition, udder quality, and structure. We only retain females that become pregnant within our 50-day breeding season – absolutely, no excuses. In other words, we select our seedstock exactly how a profit-minded commercial cattle producer would want us to.
MSU has been recognized with the Century Award from the American Angus Association for continuous production of registered Angus cattle for more than 100 years. Read more about The First Century of Angus Cattle at Michigan State University by David Hawkins, Professor Emeritus.