A giant bull named Rajababu is ready for the Eid sacrificial market. Weighing 30 maunds (1,200kg), it will be sold at the coming Eid-ul-Azha, and its owner is asking Tk 15 lakh.

The owner, Rafiqul Islam, is the son of Ishak Ali Morol of Sriramapur village in Keshabpur upazila of Jashore. He has six cattle, large and small, on his farm, and Rajababu is the one that draws attention.

Rafiqul said his family has raised cattle for generations. About five years ago he bought a one-year-old calf for Tk 1 lakh 30 thousand at the Satmail cattle market in Jashore, and has reared it ever since. He named it Rajababu.

Its daily diet is straw, grass, bran, rice polish, oilcake, maize, chickpea, ground khesari (grass pea) and salt, and he feeds it nothing else. A fan has been fitted in the cowshed for the heat, and the animal has to be looked after from morning until night.

Rafiqul said Rajababu weighs 30 maunds and he will sell it at this Eid for Tk 15 lakh. If the buyer wishes, he will keep the bull at his own home, at his own expense, until the day of the sacrifice, and he will also give the buyer a castrated goat as a gift.

To keep costs down he grows grass, maize and khesari himself alongside the straw from his own fields. Even so, Rajababu now eats about Tk 1,200 worth of feed a day. After selling it this year, he said, he plans to raise another bull from his own herd next year.

Rafiqul's son Mahbubur Rahman helps his father look after the cattle. He said Rajababu is very dear to the family, who have raised it for five years. Handling such a huge animal is very hard work, he said, but there is no bull this large anywhere in the area, and people come from different places to see it.

Tanvir Ahmed, a college student from the Phultala area of Khulna, said he came after hearing about the bull. He had never seen one this big, and seeing the farm has made him want to start one of his own.

Keshabpur upazila livestock officer Dr Alokesh Kumar Sarkar said he has visited Rafiqul Islam's farm several times, and his office gives advice on rearing as needed.

Dr Alokesh said Rafiqul's Friesian cross bull is very large. Estimating its weight from its length and chest girth, it comes to about 1,200kg. "He wants to sell it at this Eid. I hope it fetches a good price," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.