Prices have begun to recover for export-type dairy bull calves.

The peak in calf numbers is now passing and calm weather is allowing calf trucks to sail on all scheduled ferries to France. The 400-head increase in lairage space at Cherbourg is in use, helping export numbers. Some 12,797 calves were exported last week, which is likely to be a record. A similar total could be exported this week.

Over half of the calves exported last week went to the Netherlands, with the rest divided between Spain, Belgium, Italy, France, Northern Ireland and Poland.

Dutch market

The Dutch market has taken 32,344 calves this year, almost half of the total exported to date and 8,817 ahead of this time last year.

Exporters see good demand for Irish calves continuing. John Humphreys of Castleisland Mart said that the bottleneck in calf exports had now passed.

“Demand on the veal markets is OK, not as good as in the past two years, but still OK. In the past few weeks, Dutch and Spanish buyers saw the problems here with access to markets and stood off and let prices fall. But when the peak is over, it’ll go the other way.

“We’ve just gone over the peak of numbers now, even with calving a bit late. Monday was our biggest sale but we had a good trade with prices up by €25 per head.”

Meanwhile, Belgium has been classified as a Bluetongue-restricted area after at least four farms were identified as having animals infected with the disease.