Got your goat?: More than just a piece of meat

Jhulay Lal, Don and Daku Rani win on Friday; UAF goat show starts.

FAISALABAD:

The University of Agriculture, Faisalabad opened its three-day National Goat Show on Saturday featuring prize winning goats in the beauty, milk and body weight competition categories.

Meanwhile, the all Pakistan Sacrificial Animals Competition was held in tandem with the UAF event on Friday and prizes were distributed in this regard.

“We will be featuring livestock from all over the country and many of the animals have been reared specifically for this festival,” said a UAF organiser Muhammad Arif Hashim.

According to university staff and volunteers, the show will serve as a platform to boost entrepreneurial skills among farmers about new breeds, modern trends and techniques including international trends in goat herding. “This is more than just a beauty competition. Farming experts and veterinarians will also be on site to answer questions from farmers and to guide them about how to improve their performance and how best to feed and care for the animals,” said livestock expert Kashif Abdullah.

The first of the its kind goat show was inaugurated at 9am on Saturday at the Tent Pegging  Ground, Jail Road.

The milk competition will begin on October 30 and will open at 6 am. A cavalcade will be held at 9.30am, body weight competition at 10.30am, individual beauty competition at 2.30pm and the main milk competition categories will begin at 6 pm. On October 31, a cavalcade will be held at 9.30am while the prize distribution ceremony will be held at 10.30 am. “This is a huge event and we have contestants from all over the province. The owners of winning animals will receive cash prizes as well as trophies,” said one of the organisers.

The all Pakistan Sacrificial Animals Competition held in Factory area Chamda Mandi, showcased sacrificial animals from across the country were featured in a function. In the goat competition Lahore’s 291 kg ‘Jhuley Laal’ was declared the winner; Lahore’s 289 kg ‘Heera’ stood second and Multan’s 289 kg ‘Billo’ stood third. In the calf competition, Faisalabad’s 40 maund ‘Don’ stood first, 38 maund ‘Babbar Sher’ stood second and 35 maund ‘Wattoo’ was declared third.

Faisalabad’s 228 kg lamb ‘Dakoo Rani’ stood first, Gujranwala’s 227 kg ‘Haseena’ came in second and Faisalabad’s 194 kg ‘Khoti’ was declared third.

According to the owners the animals are given a special diet and are kept in special rooms. “We have worked very hard on raising these animals and they always fetch a good price. The ones that win at the competition usually sell for over Rs200,000,” said Haseena’s owner, Javed.

The owner of prize winning Jhulay Lal, Haroon Shah said that his animal had already won several local competitions but this was the first major event. “I am proud that we won. Now he will fetch a good price,” he added.

UAF officials said that it was important to organise such shows to promote community building activities and create awareness among the livestock farmers.

Announcing competition results, Professor Dr. Muhammad Sajjad Khan said that among Beetal (Makhi-Cheeni) she-goats, the goat of Muhammad Ali son of Noor got the first prize, while goats of Syed Muhammad Ali Shah and Raj Maseih stood second and third respectively.

In Tachi goats competitions, female goats of Muhammad Anwar Asif, Huzoor Bakhsh and Ghulam Husian Awan got first, second and third positions while goats of Haq Nawaz, Abdul Aziz, Zafar Saeed and Muhammad Abbas stood first, second, third and fourth in the Beetal (Faisalabadi) category.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2011.