Weaning Mart Survey

Abstract

The weanling survey was carried out for the period January 1998 to December 1999. * There were 123,259 weanling surveyed. * The distance travelled to the mart ranged from 1.4 to 216 km. * All weanlings travelled < 4 h to the mart. * The majority of weanlings travelled < 50 km to and from the mart. * The distance travelled from the mart ranged from 2.1 to 364km. * Only 32 weanlings travelled > 500 km on the combined jour neys to and from the mart. * The longest distance travelled on the combined journey to and from the mart was 579 km. * The number of weanlings that remained within the county where the marts were located ranged from 23.5% to 99.5%. * No animals travelled for > 8 h. * There are no welfare issues involved in the selling of weanlings through Irish marts.