Like every year, the roads, streets and designated sale points in the city are full of sacrificial animals of all kinds, breeds, sizes and colours.

Prospective buyers can be seen everywhere haggling over prices but most of the time returning empty-handed. The number of big animals, including camels, is quite high in the market as their saleability has increased due to high prices of goats and sheep and the ever-increasing trend of going for a collective sacrifice.

Their complaint is that the sellers are demanding extraordinarily high prices based on a presumption that the number of animals arriving this year will be far less than those brought for sale in the city last year.

On the other hand, buyers hope there will be a significant fall in average prices close to and during Eid as supply of sacrificial animals outclass their demands.

In this scenario, the buyers who are shy of bargaining prefer purchase of goats and bulls on the basis of weight.

Goats and sheep are available for rates between Rs 400 per kg to Rs 550 per kg depending on their breeds. This saves both the seller and the buyer from a likely rip-off in case they depend on their bargaining skills.