How to Identify Bangladesh's Local Cattle Types at the Eid Cattle Market

Eid-ul-Azha, one of the biggest religious festivals for Muslims, was due in Bangladesh on 28 May 2026. In the days before it, cattle markets in Dhaka and across the country filled with local and foreign breeds, and on 24 May 2026 the news site Jagonews24 published a guide for buyers on how to recognise the country's local, or deshi, cattle. Cattle are the most popular animal for the sacrifice in Bangladesh, and the report said demand was highest for local breeds and had grown in the domestic market over the previous few years.

Local cattle are usually somewhat smaller than foreign or crossbred animals. The report said that buyers had put them at the top of their lists because of their less fatty, tasty meat and their more affordable prices, and that demand was rising every year. It also said that some dishonest traders were exploiting that demand, and that ordinary buyers were sometimes cheated into paying for a foreign animal they took to be local. Anyone who wants a local animal for the sacrifice, the report advised, should know the signs before going to the market.

This article sets out those signs for each of the five local types that Bangladeshi researchers recognise, together with the background a buyer needs: what the market looked like in May 2026, where the local types come from, and what the government said about fattening drugs before that Eid.

At a press conference at the ministry on 3 May 2026, the minister in charge of fisheries and livestock said that more than 1.24 crore sacrificial animals were available for the coming Eid-ul-Azha, the state news agency BSS reported. He said that, as in the previous year, no sacrificial animal would be imported, and that leasing of the border hats had for that reason remained suspended.

More than 3,600 cattle markets were to be set up across the country, including 27 in Dhaka city: 16 under the supervision of the Dhaka North City Corporation and 11 under the Dhaka South City Corporation. The minister said markets in the capital would be held only at designated places and that none would be allowed at the roadside where it would block traffic. He also said that buyers who purchased animals online would not have to pay the market levy, known as hasil, which applies only to purchases made directly at a cattle market.

On cattle in particular, the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) said that farmers across the country had prepared about 57 lakh cattle and buffaloes for the sacrifice that year, and that supply of sacrificial animals of all kinds was above demand, BBC Bangla reported on 22 May 2026.

The same BBC Bangla report set out DLS figures for the number of cattle sacrificed in Bangladesh each year since 2017. They show how far demand had moved over those years:

• 2017: 44 lakh 73 thousand cattle
• 2018: 53 lakh 91 thousand
• 2019: 56 lakh 59 thousand
• 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic: 50 lakh
• 2021: 40 lakh
• 2022: 45 lakh 65 thousand
• 2023: 45 lakh 81 thousand
• 2024: 47 lakh 66 thousand
• 2025: 46 lakh 50 thousand

Asked about the fall, a professor of agricultural economics at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, told BBC Bangla that there were three main reasons: weaker purchasing power after the pandemic, higher cattle prices driven by higher production costs, and a shift towards sacrificing goats or sheep instead of cattle to save money. Farmers quoted by BBC Bangla said that small and medium-sized cattle were in greatest demand that year. A BSS report from Rajshahi on 23 May 2026 described the same pattern at the city's historic City Haat, where middle- and lower-income buyers were most interested in medium-sized cattle and goats, and crowds were thickest around cattle priced between Tk 70,000 and Tk 120,000.

Bangladesh's local cattle are zebu, the humped cattle of the Indian subcontinent known to science as Bos indicus. Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia published by the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, describes them as generally smaller and slower-growing than the temperate Bos taurus breeds, but resistant to some infectious diseases. Its entry on cattle says the local variety is less prone to disease and tolerates heat, while pure foreign breeds and crossbreds have high nutritional needs, adapt less well and are more susceptible to parasites and disease. The local types can make good use of low-quality roughage and are well adapted to harsh conditions.

No formal cattle breed has yet been established in Bangladesh, Banglapedia notes; long natural selection has instead produced a few improved indigenous varieties named after the places where they are found. Researchers at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) in Mymensingh, writing in the journal Animals in 2021, listed five: Red Chittagong, Pabna, Munshiganj, North Bengal Grey and the non-descript deshi. They wrote that these types have distinct coat colours and differ in productivity and body measurements, and that farmers developed them in their home areas by selecting animals over many years, particularly for milk and appearance. A 2023 study in the journal Heliyon also named a Madaripur type and Dinajpur dwarf cattle among the native cattle of the country.

Foreign cattle reached the region long before the present crossbreds. Banglapedia's entry on livestock records that Hariana cattle were brought in for improvement before independence, that Sindhi, Sahiwal and Tharparkar cattle followed after the partition of 1947, that artificial insemination began in 1958, and that in 1974 the Australian government donated Holstein-Friesian cows and breeding bulls to Bangladesh. The 2021 BAU study added that indigenous cattle alone predominated until the late 1970s, and that indiscriminate upgrading and crossbreeding since then has multiplied upgraded animals at the expense of the local varieties. The authors wrote that the Munshiganj and Pabna types were at risk of extinction, and that ex situ conservation of the Pabna, Munshiganj and Red Chittagong types had been under way at government institutional herds on a limited scale for more than a decade.

The same genetic study, which analysed blood samples from 240 cattle, found that the five local types are only weakly differentiated from one another, a sign of centuries of interbreeding: they had been grouped in the recent past by coat colour and body measurements rather than by long selective breeding. For a buyer this matters, because it means colour, build and weight are exactly the signs that set the local types apart. The descriptions below are those given by Jagonews24.

This type is found in every region of the country. The animals are usually small. Their coat is short, smooth and shiny, and the skin quite tough. The hump is well formed and distinct. The skin under the neck, the dewlap, is well developed and extended, and in adult bulls in particular it hangs down. The ears are long and leaf-like with folds, and the horns are usually curved.

The colour can be red, white, black, grey or ash, and sometimes a mix of two or more colours. Height to the hump is usually three to three and a half feet, and body length, from the base of the front leg to the base of the tail, is close to three and a half feet. An adult male usually weighs 200 to 250 kg and a female 150 to 220 kg.

This is the animal Banglapedia calls the non-descript indigenous zebu, a multipurpose animal that makes up most of the country's cattle. It is reared as part of traditional crop-based mixed farming, for draught power and manure as well as milk and meat, and Banglapedia puts its average milk yield at about 206 kg per lactation. A 2012 study in the Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences, citing DLS figures for 2009, put the country's cattle at 22.97 million head, more than 90 percent of them indigenous zebu.

This type is found mainly in Chattogram and the Chattogram Hill Tracts. The animals are usually reddish, and a reddish tinge is also visible on the face, eyelids, hooves and tail tip. The body is relatively small. Height to the hump is usually about three and a half feet, and body length three and a half to four feet. An adult male usually weighs 250 to 400 kg and a female 150 to 230 kg.

Banglapedia describes the Red Chittagong as a beautiful red animal with distinct characteristics that may give about 2 litres of milk a day. Researchers who studied the type's genetics in 2014 wrote that the Chittagong district was the only breeding area for this population. A study by the Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) and partners, published the same year, compared the milk of buffalo, Holstein crossbreds, indigenous cattle and Red Chittagong cattle. It found higher levels of protein, casein, whey protein, lactose and total minerals in the Red Chittagong and indigenous cattle milk, and concluded that buffalo and Red Chittagong milk showed the best results from both the nutritional and the processing point of view.

Of all the local types, the Red Chittagong appears the most distinct. In the 2021 BAU genetic study, about a third of the Red Chittagong animals sampled stood clearly apart from all other Bangladeshi cattle, and the type also showed the highest genetic diversity of the five. The authors linked the separate group to ex situ conservation in a closed nucleus herd.

This breed is seen mostly in Pabna and Sirajganj districts. The colour is usually red, grey (ash) or a mix of the two. In males it can range from fairly dark grey to whitish grey. The face, eyelids, horns and tail tip are usually black. The body is quite long: about five and a half feet in length and four feet in height to the hump. An adult male usually weighs 350 to 400 kg and a female 250 to 280 kg.

Banglapedia counts the Pabna and Sirajganj area among the places where the country's best local cattle are found, and says a Pabna cow can give 3 to 5 litres of milk a day. Part of the reason lies in the land. In greater Pabna there is a well-defined seasonal pasture, locally called the bathan, a basin of about 6,000 hectares along the Boral and Gohala rivers that floods in the monsoon and stays dry from November to April. Black gram and grass pea are broadcast on the river bed without tillage, and farmers graze their cows on this legume pasture from November to March. Banglapedia notes that cattle of these areas are quite productive and are the main source of milk for the Milk Vita cooperative, and that a similar pasture system exists in Munshiganj and around Takerhat.

The Pabna cow has also been used as a base for crossbreeding: Banglapedia lists Sahiwal-Pabna and Friesian-Pabna crosses among the crossbreds of Bangladesh, with milk yields of 1,240 and 1,460 litres per lactation respectively. That history is one reason a buyer who wants a pure local Pabna animal needs to look closely at its colour and build.

North Bengal Grey cattle are found in various districts of the northern region. They are usually white or various shades between dark grey and white. Adult males have ash-coloured patches on the neck. The face, eyelids and hooves are usually black, but the tail tip is white. The horns are small to medium and curve inwards. An adult usually stands a little over three feet tall, with a body length close to three and a half feet. An adult male usually weighs 300 to 350 kg and a female 200 to 250 kg.

Banglapedia lists North Bengal Grey among the improved indigenous varieties whose production potential is higher than the average for the country's common local cattle. Cattle are almost evenly spread across Bangladesh, the encyclopedia adds, with a slightly higher concentration in the north. In the 2021 BAU study, milk production was described as comparatively higher in the Red Chittagong, Munshiganj and Pabna types than in North Bengal Grey and the non-descript deshi.

Munshiganj cattle are found mainly in the Mirkadim area of Munshiganj district and are commonly known as 'Mirkadim cattle'. They are also seen in neighbouring districts. They are mainly white, with a light pink tinge in places. The horns, eyelids, hooves and tail tip are pink or a mix of pink and black. An adult usually stands 3 to 5 feet tall. An adult male weighs 250 to 350 kg and a female 200 to 280 kg.

A 2023 study in Heliyon by researchers from BAU and BLRI described the Munshiganj type as one of the potential domestic cattle resources of the country, found exclusively in Munshiganj district and its surrounding areas, and recognised internationally as a variety rather than a pure breed. With its creamy to pale pinkish coat, the authors wrote, it is attractive and easy to tell from other cattle; no authentic history of crossbreeding could be traced, and it is presumed to have evolved locally by natural selection. They warned that the variety was under threat because of haphazard breeding.

The study measured 10 male and 10 female Munshiganj cattle at BLRI's Pachutia research farm in Savar between July 2021 and June 2022. The males had creamy white to dull pinkish coats and the females white to creamy. The neck was pinkish in half the animals, brown in 30 percent and white in 20 percent; 70 percent had a pinkish muzzle and the rest a pinkish white muzzle with black dots; and the hooves were mostly pinkish, with light black in 20 percent. The mean body weight of these research-farm animals was 418 kg for males and 307.6 kg for females, with a mean height at the withers of 135.21 cm, heavier than the market ranges Jagonews24 gave.

Concern about cattle fattened with drugs comes up every year before Eid. At the 3 May 2026 press conference the minister said that the import of cow-fattening injections or any steroid was completely disallowed by the Department of Livestock Services, but that a section of unscrupulous traders might collect such medicines to fatten sacrificial animals, and that DLS would destroy those illegal drugs in drives across the country, BSS reported. He said that expert veterinary teams under DLS supervision would be posted at every cattle market in the country to give emergency treatment to sick animals.

The use of such substances in feed is also governed by law. The Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act 2010 (মৎস্যখাদ্য ও পশুখাদ্য আইন, ২০১০) has a section, section 14, headed as a ban on the use of antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides and similar substances in fish feed and animal feed.

On 23 May 2026, after visiting the Gabtoli cattle market in Dhaka, the state minister for fisheries and livestock urged buyers to purchase sacrificial animals from legitimate sources rather than animals brought in through smuggling routes, BSS reported.

Jagonews24 ended its guide with practical advice: knowing these features, any buyer can identify local cattle at the market more easily, and where possible it is best to take a veterinarian or an experienced cattle keeper along. The DLS veterinary teams at the markets are a further source of help for a buyer who is unsure about an animal's health.

Photo: Wasiul Bahar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), BBC Bangla, Banglapedia (Asiatic Society of Bangladesh), Animals (MDPI), Heliyon, Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences, Laws of Bangladesh (Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs Division)