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Bull Controlling Country list (File 734)

Purpose

Defining which country controls a given AI bull that is used in multiple countries has always been a challenge for Interbull service users, given that country of registration only implies the origin of the animal, not where it actually is located. For progeny tested bulls included in MACE, the country with the larger number of daughters included in the national genetic evaluation usually is a reliable indicator of the controlling country, but this additional information is not available for the young genomically evaluated bulls that are included in GMACE.
Therefore, the Interbull SC has decided to request additional information from the service users regarding which bulls are controlled by companies/stud within the area of influence of each country participating in Interbull international comparisons (MACE & GMACE). This information will have strategic use for interpreting all types of results distributed by Interbull and it will play an important role on the GMACE publication policy.

Implementation

  1. Each bull should have only one controlling country assigned:
    1. When a bull has shared ownership, owners need to agree on which country to assign as the controlling country for the publication status of GMACE evaluations;
    2. The Interbull Centre will try to resolve any conflicts by contacting the national genetic evaluation units as data providers and asking for a solution before a specified deadline ;
    3. If owners do not resolve conflicts, the regular publication policy applies, i.e. if one country reports a bull with an official GEBV, the GMACE evaluation for that bull will be distributed by Interbull for official publication
  2. Bulls that previously held the status “Yes” for GMACE publication cannot be subsequently assigned a “No” status for GMACE publication.
  3. If available, participating countries in GMACE should supply the NAAB stud number of the bull controller to be used as additional criteria to resolve conflicts.

File 734 format

This format is designed for uploading information about bull controlling country and its GMACE publication status. Note that the file has semi-colon field separators (exactly five) and the column positions allow for these separators. 

Column Field description                                   Format        Notes
1      Record type                                         Character  3  734
5      Breed of evaluation                                 Character  3  Notes 1 and 3.
9      Controlling country (Population code)               Character  3  Notes 2 and 3.
13     International animal ID                             Character 19  Note 4.
33     GMACE publication status                            Character  1  Note 5.
35     NAAB stud number                                    Character 10  Note 6.

Notes:

  1. Breed of evaluation (upper case) must be BSW, GUE, JER, HOL, RDC or SIM.

  2. The population code must be an upper case population code assigned by the Interbull Centre. It is generally the same as the country code of the organization submitting the data except in the cases of multi-country evaluations (eg. "DEA" and "DFS") or multiple populations within a country participating in the same international evaluation (eg. "CHE"/"CHR", "FRA"/"FRR"/"FRM").

  3. The breed-population combination must be among the combinations for which your organization is authorized to submit bull evaluations for MACE for dairy production traits.

  4. The 19-character international animal ID must be valid according to the rules specified for pedigree files (breed*3, country*3, sex*1, id*12). (The animal must exist in the Interbull pedigree database and a pedigree record must have been uploaded.)

  5. The allowed "GMACE publication status codes" are: Y=yes, the controlling country allows the GMACE results for that bull to be distributed, N=no, the controlling country DOES NOT allow the GMACE results for that bull to be distributed. It is assumed here that GMACE results for all available traits have the same publication status, either "Y" for all traits or "N" for all traits.

  6. The NAAB stud number of the bull controller should be reported (if available). The purpose is to use it as an additional criteria to resolve the conflicts, i.e. the information provided by the bull controller has precedence over other sources. The structure of the NAAB stud number is follows: a 3 digit stud code, 2 letter breed code and 5 digit animal number within stud, eg 007HO09749. For the purpose of this file format (734) the leading zeros on the number parts are obligatory, the filed must be 10 digits long.

Sample records:

734;HOL;ITA;HOLITAM000123456789;Y;007HO19749
734;HOL;ITA;HOLITAM000987654321;N;029HO81003
734;HOL;ITA;HOLITAM000987654322;N;139HO00172
734;HOL;ITA;HOLAUTM012345678900;Y;200HO23173

public/file734 (last edited 2016-07-25 12:12:02 by Valentina)