While the notion of flying calves out of the country has been put on the back burner for a while, the trade is certainly flying this week, with prices across almost all categories of calves up on last week’s trading.

Exporting concerns and stoppages took its toll on early April trading, but the trade is fully back to normal again this week, with more farmer activity ringside at calf sales.

A weather warning for high winds in the middle of this week disrupted some boat sailings, but with numbers of export-type calves reducing at sales, there is spare capacity in calf exporting yards to deal with any disruption this week.

This week’s Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) calf price analysis table sees calf numbers well back on the previous week’s trading. There were 514 10- to 20-day-old male calves in the analysis this week, down from 764 last week.

Older male calves saw the biggest drop to 3,359 head, down from 4,187 in the previous week. Heifer calves also saw big drops.

While numbers are dropping, the price is moving in the other direction.

Young Aberdeen Angus bull calves saw one of the biggest increases, with these calves coming in at €132/head this week, up from €92/head last week.

Old Friesian bulls also saw a €15/head increase this week on the back of a drop in numbers.

There were 1,290 21- to 42-day-old Aberdeen Angus-cross male calves through the system this week at €166/head, up €21/head on last week’s price of €145.

Older Hereford bull calves also saw an improvement of €8/head on last week’s trading.

Older Belgian Blue bulls were up €26/head to €250/head, while older Belgian Blue heifer calves also saw an increase in price this week, as they were up €15/head to €239/head.

Bord Bia figures show that calf exports up to 25 March 2023 are running 12.1% ahead of the same period in 2022, with just over 80,000 calves exported so far this year.

Live exports of weanlings are also up by 41% to just over 9,000 so far in 2023.