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    Efficiency and profitability in meat animal production is vital to producers within North Dakota, across the U.S., and worldwide, as it is a multi-billion dollar industry within the U.S. alone. Without sustainable and efficient production practices, there is concern that agriculture production may not meet increasing demands in the next 50 years. The number of cattle in the U.S. has decreased by almost 7 million from 2006 to 2012, but meat production has remained relatively constant (FAO, 2012), indicating improvement in production efficiency. With growing interests in the U.S. for niche markets of meat (e.g., grass-fed, farm-to-fork, etc. programs), producers need selection criteria that will aid them in selecting desirable animals for production of these specialized meat products. Most economically relevant production traits in livestock are quantitative in nature, meaning that they are controlled by many loci as well as influenced by the environment. Selection of breeding individuals utilizing phenotype records for production of meat animals does not perfectly correlate with how that animal will pass on its genetic information, therefore methods have been developed to estimate the transmitting ability for breeding individuals.    

    In cattle, estimates of transmitting ability are expected progeny differences (EPD), which have traditionally relied on phenotypes and pedigree information. Newer technology in purebred associations are also including estimates based on the combination of phenotypes, pedigree, and now genomic information using DNA markers. All the methods of genetic evaluation still hinge on phenotypes and their respective collection methods. Therefore, to ensure that selection decisions are made appropriately by the producer, the collection and methods of genetic evaluations still need to be researched. This is particularly true for lowly heritable and/or difficult-to-collect production traits, as they typically use indicator traits as criteria.