A deal has been reached by an Irish company to ship 2,000 horned ram lambs out of Ireland in the next week.

The venture, being organised by the family-owned Wicklow Calf Company, will see scotch-type and blackface ram lambs being collected from Maam Cross Mart in Co. Mayo.

Farmers have been urged to book in their lambs with Maam Cross Mart this week and only lambs that have been entered beforehand will be accepted.

Fleshy lambs weighing 40kg are required to fill the contract and only sheep that have been tagged with EID tags and have horns can be accepted.

Wicklow Calf Company’s David Scallan encouraged farmers to bring forward quality lambs only and if this year’s venture is a success there’s potential for similar opportunities to occur in the coming years.

This is the second major deal to secured by the company in recent weeks. Back in early August, the Wicklow Calf Company secured a contract to export 10,000 ram lambs for the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Ahda.

This contract required ram lambs weighing 40-47kg. In addition, the lambs were also required to have long tails, be well-fleshed and have electronic tags for export.

Last year, some 48,000 sheep were exported from Ireland by live export means; this was an increase of almost 50% on the previous year’s 32,000 head.

According to Bord Bia, 75% of these exports happened during the month of August – one month ahead of the Muslim festival of Eid.