Source of Bulls withs Highest and Lowest Evaluations (AIPL Res. Rep. SOURCE1 (11-05)

AIPL RESEARCH REPORT
SOURCE1 (11-05)

Source of bulls with highest and lowest evaluations for various traits by country scale

P.M. VanRaden and M.E. Tooker
Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory, ARS-USDA, Beltsville, MD 20705-2350
301-504-8334 (voice) ~ 301-504-8092 (fax) ~ rlaipl@aipl.arsusda.gov ~ http://aipl.arsusda.gov

Bull source tables || Country codes

The International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull; Uppsala, Sweden) uses multitrait across-country evaluation (MACE) to combine bull evaluations from about 25 countries and to provide international bull evaluations based on each country's scale. Bull rankings on each scale differ because genetic correlations between countries are less than 1 (see Interbull's "Information on Evaluations for Production, Conformation, Udder Health, Longevity and Calving Traits" for official current estimates of correlations between countries for different traits).

Numbers of bulls born during the last 12 years and among the top and bottom 100 evaluations on each country's scale for yield (milk, fat, and protein), somatic cell score (SCS), longevity, and calving ease [sire (SCE) and daughter (DCE)] are reported to help in understanding how the MACE system works. The tables include rows for each country that submitted data and columns that are determined from the bull's "home" country defined in two different ways: 1) Interbull country where the bull had the most daughters reported for yield traits, which may not be the bull's country of origin, and 2) Interbull country of first registration, which may not be where the bull is actually located.

Although Interbull evaluations were used to determine the highest and lowest bull evaluations on each country's scale, those evaluations may not be official in each country. For more complete information, including official evaluations of individual bulls, visit the country's evaluation web site.

Interbull uses International Organzation for Standardization (ISO) country abbreviations and additional 3-letter codes to identify specific national or multinational populations (see data-exchange reference note 119).