Traders who brought sacrificial animals to Tejgaon, Uttara and a few other makeshift markets across capital Dhaka have counted losses after having to sell off at lower prices.

Traders claimed, some buyers are offering half the asking price and they are selling cattle with a loss of 10 to 15 thousand per cow.

Kishoreganj’s Azizul Huq came to Dhaka with 12 cows and camped at the Tejgaon Polytechnic cattle market in Dhaka. Until Sunday, he sold only eight from the herd, and now taking the four back.

 “I have spent Tk 17,000 in truck rent. Have not made much by selling the eight. No one wants to know about the cow, they calculate only meat,” he told Bangla Tribune.

Cattle prices steeply fell from the early hours of Sunday due to a lack of buyers against sufficient supply. However, that was not the case the previous days, when buyers and traders were found bargaining.

But that changed on Sunday when buyers had all the leverage due to the supply glut.

According to statistics of the Department of Livestock (DLS), there are more than 11.7 million cattle, including cows, bulls, buffaloes, goats and sheep in the market this Eid-ul-Azha.

Last year, there were 11.5 million cattle in the market and about 10.5 million of those were slaughtered in the Eid.

To assess the demand for sacrificial animals in a particular year, the DLS usually adds 500,000 to the number of cattle slaughtered in the previous year. It estimated that the demand this year is 11 million.