No more mean members of the herd: Eugenics in the cattle industry

 

Photo and headline:  Drovers, 7/10/2026

Maddy Rohr reports:

If you’ve been around cattle for a long time, it’s likely you have been run out of a pen once or twice by a high-strung cow or bull. Poor disposition and docility in cattle can be both hereditary and caused by the surrounding environment. For some producers, docility expected progeny differences (EPDs) are especially important to buying seedstock cattle. 

Holton Red Angus runs about 600 commercial and 300 registered Red Angus cows in Cisco, Texas. After buying a few donors with the goal of raising herd sires for his herd, Paul Holton found himself selling 50 or more bulls a year in private treaty sales in the area. Now they have their own spring bull sale. When sorting bulls for the sale, disposition is top of Holton’s mind. 

“For the average customer, disposition means a lot,” Holton says. “I don’t tolerate [bad] disposition. When I was younger, it didn’t bother me, but I was young and dumb, and I didn’t really realize the consequences that it has when they do make it to the feedyard. Those cattle, the offspring, are going to be goofy too. It hurts their overall gains. You get the dark cutters.”