Interbull evaluations for Jersey bulls will be released on release Monday as soon as they are ready to NAAB and the Jersey Association. The file will include the official Interbull evaluations of all bulls where the Interbull evaluation is official. Interbull does not provide an evaluation for rear udder width, so the US domestic evaluation is reported if the bull has a US evaluation, otherwise, the evaluation is estimated from the evaluated trait with the highest correlation. This procedure also is used for other linear traits that are missing on individual bulls. The Interbull evaluation for a trait is missing for some bulls that have their US evaluation included. This can happen if the US evaluation is based on second crop daughters and the country of the progeny test does not evaluate the trait. If final score is missing from Interbull and the bull has a US evaluation, the US final score is reported, otherwise, the field is blank. For about half of the bulls without a domestic evaluation, final score is missing. The determination if the Interbull evaluation is official is made based on udder support, not udder depth as announced in May 2001.
A truncated version of the bull evaluation format 38 file will be made available on the Wednesday preceding release Monday. This file includes the first 205 bytes of the format 38 for AI bulls. Early access to this information will enable users to prepare for any changes in identification information before the rush to load the new evaluations on release Monday.
To assist users in making decisions as early as possible on release Monday, a file of Official Interbull evaluations for bulls being updated will be made available at a target time of 8 AM on release Monday. This file will not contain percentiles or evaluations for net merit, cheese merit, fluid merit, or productive life. The evaluations will be in format 031 with blanks for the missing fields. This file can be made available early because except for the determination of usability, it just passes on the evaluation information as it is received from Interbull. In case the release of the complete file is delayed, this file may enable studs to complete most of their decisions on bulls without delay. The US preferred ID is in the "Bull identification in the country providing this information" field. Bulls registered with both Holstein and Red and White do not have a Red & White evaluation record.