Livestock exporter Viastar plans to export up to 15,000 bull weanlings to Turkey before year end and is actively buying suitable animals.

The specialist livestock carrier boat which is now transporting 1,800 factory weight bulls to Turkey has been booked to return for a second consignment. It is likely to arrive here in mid-October.

Viastar Ltd is also arranging for a second specialist livestock boat to join the Atlantic M on this route. The company is assembling Limousin, Angus, Charolais, Hereford and Simmental weanlings here, but also, it claims, potentially from France.

Turkish authorities have lifted the maximum weight limit for these feeder animals to 350kg. To allow for the 21-day quarantine period, Viastar is accepting cattle of up to 330kg. Weanlings are being bought at marts and directly from farmers by agents. Viastar has collection centres in eight different counties.

The 1,800 factory-weight bulls already on route to Turkey are meeting good weather. The livestock boat is fitted with pens allowing animals be kept in set groups for the duration of the trip. An Irish vet is on board the ship for the journey to provide daily veterinary supervision. There are no slatted tanks on the ship. Instead, a proportion of pens are kept empty to allow groups be regularly rotated into freshly bedded pens and the emptied pens in turn cleaned out.