Weather continues to cause problems for calf exporters. This week, it’s sea swell.

In the run up to Saturday’s sailing from Dublin to Cherbourg, there were doubts as to whether calf trucks would be allowed on board. Swells were running at over 4m on part of the route. That is the cut-off point set by the Department of Agriculture on calf welfare grounds.

In the end, the swells subsided and calf trucks got the go-ahead for the sailing. But one exporter who wanted to send out three trucks had by then cancelled.

There were similar doubts ahead of Tuesday evening’s sailing from Rosslare but again clearance was given and 21 cattle trucks loaded. Two carried forward stores for Spain, the others calves. The Tuesday sailing from Rosslare is the busiest of the week for calves because of the large calf sales taking place on Mondays.

As some of the trucks that sailed on Tuesday were doubles, carrying up to 330 calves, this meant that there were close to 6,000 calves on the sailing. Again, six drivers travelled on the boat and provided supervision for all 21 trucks. The other drivers travelled separately by bus and boat to Cherbourg, arriving ahead of their trucks. Demand for places on the Thursday and Saturday sailings from Rosslare is not running so high.

But this week exporters have struggled to find customers in Holland and Spain for the increased number of calves that came on the market.

There is still an overhang of Dutch calves on veal farms in Holland – the forced reduction in Dutch dairy herds means more heifer calves are going for veal instead of on for breeding.

One exporter told the Irish Farmers Journal that he hoped this overhang would be cleared by next week. Spanish buyers are only starting to look for Irish calves in numbers now – they prefer a slightly older, heavier calf.