Bluetongue, high prices, banning live exports, shipping capacity, Mercosur trade deal and the beef trade could all have an impact on live exports of Irish cattle in the next 12 months, but the biggest impact of all could come from something that is within our control – the health of Irish weanlings.

This, according to Roscommon-based live exporter Derek Maxwell, could be the biggest threat coming down the line for Irish cattle. The Maxwell family is one of the country’s largest live exporters, purchasing animals in marts and on-farm from every county in Ireland.

There are currently three generations of the family involved in the business; started by Hubert Maxwell with his sons Michael and Shane, and now grandsons Derek and Mark heavily involved in the business.

You can mention the Maxwell name in any mart in Ireland and people will know who you are talking about.

Their main business is supplying top-quality weanlings to feedlots in Spain and Italy, but they have also consigned loads of pedigree Aberdeen Angus and Herford cattle for customers in Eastern Europe.

Over 1,000 animals a week move through their exporting yards at peak autumn sales time, and with that comes a huge risk of pneumonia outbreaks.

Derek Maxwell said: “We’re seeing a lot more of our customers wanting us to concentrate on health. They want us to guarantee that we are supplying them healthy weanlings and that’s hard to do when you’re depending on farmers to make sure vaccinations and everything else is completed at the right time.

“In an ideal world the pneumonia vaccination programme would be given in advance of weaning and sale. We see a huge difference in the weanlings that come to us that are vaccinated and the weanlings that aren’t vaccinated.

“The vaccinated weanlings get no check at all and they go on an do very well with customers. We want those customers coming back to us every year and the more weanlings they want, the more we buy in marts and on farms. I have weanling suppliers who I buy off every year who I know are vaccinating and doing the job right.

“I bought 82 weanlings last autumn off one farmer, we moved those 82 weanlings to Italy trouble free and the farmer in Italy killed those 82 animals in the last couple of weeks. That’s the story I want to hear and not a feedlot ringing me saying they don’t want any more Irish weanlings.

“It’s gone to the stage now where we won’t buy some weanlings when we see a name coming up on the board in the mart. If we had problems in the past, we stay away. On the other end of the scale if I know a farmer’s calves are vaccinated and healthy, I can pay more for them. This is completely within our control and we should be maximising the health of our weanlings. We have the quality, we have the customers.”

The Maxwells are very positive for the back end in terms of the weaning trade: “Look, we’re still seeing a huge demand from our main European customers. North Africa has got a little quieter in recent months, but it might pick up again towards the end the year. It was never for the top-quality weanling anyway. Spain and Italy are where the top-quality weanlings are going and they are happy with the quality of weanlings they are getting at the moment. They are becoming increasingly concerned with the health status of our cattle. The value of a shed of 200 bull weanlings is gone up by almost €150,000, to close to half a million euro, so you can see why we want every precaution taken to reduce the risk of disease outbreak and prevent losses” Maxwell said.

Table 1 and Figure 1 outline the figures for weanling exports so far in 2025 and they paint a very positive picture. Live exports of calves and weanlings to Spain have come close to 100,000 head so far in 2025. Italy has also seen a really solid demand with 30,125 head exported so far in 2025, up over 4,000 head on the previous year.

1. Health is number one: we’d love to see animals fully vaccinated coming to us it means we can deliver healtheir stock to customers so there is some value in that for us, which means we can bid on for calves which we know have been fully vaccinated. A worm dose is also beneficial to keep animals thriving and looking the part.

2. Weaned weanlings: weanlings are going to be less prone to getting stressed in marts and in turn getting sick after the sale. It’s not that hard to work out what weanlings have been weaned in marts. Ideally, all weanlings would be weaned that we buy. We like to see weanlings with a nice covering of flesh, not overdone.

3. Have the right quality: quality pays and we have the customers for the top weanlings. We are seeing the biggest demand for Limousin and Belgian Blue weanlings at the moment and combinations of these breeds are going down well with our customers. We have a lot of different customers for different types, but they all want quality, regardless of breed.

4. Weight is important: we have the most customers for bull weanlings in the 300-450kg weight bracket. We have customers outside of those weights but most of our customers are looking for a bull weanling in the 300-450kkg weight bracket.

5 Watch the TB test date: if you are export testing weanlings make sure you have left enough days on the test after the sale. If the test runs out in a day or two after we buy them, that means we have to wait until 42 days after the test to test again so it means we have to hold onto weanlings longer. It is an advantage to have weanlings export-tested, but not critical.

Kevin Henry, Castlerea veterinary clinic and member of XL vets is the vet tasked with keeping the weanlings in the Maxwell yard healthy. There’s a comprehensive programme in place. Weanlings undergo as little stress as possible once they come down off the ramp into the yard. They are vaccinated and receive a drench and go straight onto a straw bed. As little mixing as possible is carried out after that and they are offered alfalfa hay to settle everything down after the mart and journey.

Mark Maxwell said: “We herd very night looking for any signs of animals off feed, and try and catch anything early. When you have big numbers around you, a bad outbreak could have devastating consequences, so we do everything to avoid that.”

Kevin Henry added: “For me it’s about changing the farmer mindset into what the benefits of having vaccinated weanlings are. I see it every year and you don’t need to be dealing in big numbers. A farmer buying 20 weanlings can have problems were animals are mixed, stressed and then get sick. A pneumonia vaccination programme is a relatively small cost (€15-€17/head) in comparison to losing a weanling or having a group of weanlings thriving at 1kg/day, as opposed to 1.2/kg/day.

For me it’s about keeping the immunity levels boosted so that they can withstand the challenges like weaning, mixing, mart or transport.

I’d say there are about three in 10 suckler farmers in our practice vaccinating. Farmers think they are vaccinating for someone else, when in fact it will also help their own herd in terms of growth rates of replacement heifers and in calf rates.

“We have a massive problem coming down the road where we won’t have access to antibiotics and I’d love to see more being done by our industry to encourage vaccination. To be honest, I dread to see October and November coming every year because I know that’s where the issues start. It’s a hard place when you’re called out to a sick weanling and it’s too late and he doesn’t make it.

Vaccination is a realitively easy thing to do and can be done along woth dosing or other tasks on the farm.It’s just takes some planning and preparation.

It’s hard to believe it’s almost 20 years since the Weanling Export Programme (WEP) was rolled out. It was a joint effort between farmers, vets, marts and exporters, and the idea was to encourage the uptake of vaccination of weanlings on Irish suckler farms. Some of the vets that developed the programme were involved first-hand in pneumonia outbreaks on large cattle farms and had seen high levels of mortality and lost weight gain in weanlings.

The idea was that the farmer would give the weanlings a worm dose on their farm along with an IBR vaccine, and the first injection of a two-shot course for Pasteurella, RSV and PI3 pneumonia. It was then up to the purchaser to give the second shot of the pneumonia vaccine to complete the course.

It was also agreed that the purchasers of these weanlings would contribute to the vaccination and certification cost to the tune of €10 per animal.

Marts identified animals that were part of the programme by placing a green sticker on their back at intake time, so buyers could identify what animals were part of the programme and which weren’t. The programme went down well with European customers, who at the time were looking at a higher health status of the weanlings that they were buying. The system worked well in most marts, with marts collecting the €10 from the purchaser and passing it back to the seller, but some exporters didn’t agree to pay so the programme never really got off the ground and generally faded out not long after it was launched.

Weanlings were making€1.80/kg at the time, with the average 350kg weanling coming in around €630/head. On this week’s MartBids analysis table the average bull weanling in the 300-400kg weight bracket came in at €5.22/kg, or €1,827/head. That’s €1,200/head over the price back then, so you can see why exporters and buyers are concerned about their purchases. Production costs for suckler farmers have obviously also increased along with the level of risk now associated with a pneumonia outbreak on a suckler farm, exporter’s yard or buyer’s feedlot. Is it time to look at a possible rollout of a revamped WEP again, 20 years after the first rollout? Would marts and exporters work together to facilitate the programme and what should the buyer contribution be, €10/head, €15/head, or €20/head. The appetite appears to be there on the buyer’s side for increased health in calves and they also appear willing to pay for it. If it isn’t a full rollout of WEP again is there a role for marts to run vaccinated-only sales of weanlings where vets certify that weanlings have been vaccinated ahead of the sale.

These would need to be standalone sales to avoid any mixing with non-vaccinated cattle. The National Beef Welfare scheme obviously has the option for weanling vaccination, but only an option and only undertaken by some suckler farmers, as opposed to the mandatory meal feeding which was completed by all programme participants. It’s critical that we do everything on our power to guarantee that weanlings and all other cattle continue to be exported to high-priced European markets.

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