Farmers are currently experiencing postal delays of up to three weeks when posting BVD samples with An Post.

Initially, the affected farmers blamed labs for slow testing. However, in many cases the samples had not arrived at the lab two to three weeks after postage – even when farmers paid for registered post.

This issue arose in July and was brought up with An Post, but the delays still haven’t been rectified, a spokesperson for Enfer labs in Naas told the Irish Farmers Journal on Tuesday.

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“There are substantial postal delays at the minute and a lot of farmers are very annoyed. Samples are taking two and three weeks to get to us and some samples aren’t getting here at all. Farmers are having to go and order new tags and then go and match up that animal in the field. Some have ended up with farm inspections and have lost their negative national herd status for BVD as a result. It’s having a huge domino effect. I rang other labs around the country and they’re experiencing similar delays,” they said.

One farmer sent 75 samples through registered post at the end of July and the samples still haven’t been received at the lab.