Goat Market Adventures

Yesterday’s Indian adventure was to the local goat market near the Gudimalkapur Flower Market in Hyderabad. As you drive toward the market you start to see more and more men with small herds of goats trying to find shade and keeping hydrated from the strong Indian sun.

As you arrive at the market, it is clear that there are very much two seperate sections to the goat market. The ‘live’ sale side of the road where there are pens full of goats of all sizes, colours and breeds.  Then, there is the other side of the road, where after you’ve selected, negotiated the price and finally paid for your goat it is slaughtered and can even be cooked on the spot !! We didn’t stay too long on this side of the road as it was quite disgusting!! There is not any part of the goat that is not chopped, diced and ready for sale. If you pay for all of the goat, then they expect to get ALL of the goat!

The smell that hit us as we arrived was ‘intense’ to say the least, and we were walking through blood, intestines, and every other ‘goat fluid’ possible!! The flies, dirt, and general rubbish was quite the experience.

After dashing across the road and dodging the tuk-tuks and trucks full of goats to the live market we quickly realised we were quite the celebrities. This is a predominantly male domain and to have two western ladies and the boys visiting was the highlight of their day. They even tried to gift us a baby goat, and being unable to communicate that we just wanted to visit and see the goats, made for some good laughs from everyone.

The young boy in the photos below was very proud of his family's goats and even grabbed one of the larger goats, lifted it's back leg up to show us the 'goat's manhood' and slapped it multiple times in extreme pride.  This resulted in further loud belly laughs from us which then resulted in a bigger crowd of sellers coming to see what all the fuss was about.  We were being asked for photos and selfies from everyone and more goats being offered as gifts.

Demand for goats has increased hugely in India over the last five years, and now there are over five million goat herders in India.  In times of demand, such as Bakr Eid and the current Dussehra festival, an adult goat will sell for about 6000 rupees ($120 AUD) which will include butchering.

Sadly, we didn't manage to bring the baby goat home as a pet - maybe next time :)

The smell is just intoxicating as they slaughter, gut and then cook the goat.  Along with
the usual faeces, urine and sweat smells !

Some goat insides

argh…….

now for some live goats.

Creating a bit of a traffic jam

This little man was going to be gifted to Mum :)

Not sure the Australian Customs Officers would be impressed with this little fellow 

This man was SUPER proud of this guy

and now with his son

These guys insisted on me taking their photo 

And these young boys chased us down the road to have a photo with Mum