At Eid-ul-Azha, the number of sacrificial animals is too large to be handled by the professional butchers, particularly during the first day when most of the faithful wish to slaughter the sacrificial animal. The butchers offer their expertise and labour but against high fee to be paid by the faithful who themselves are unable or unwilling to slaughter the sacrificial animals
The professional butchers apparently plan their work on Baqr Eid in different ways. Some use their shops as the place for slaughtering the sacrificial animals which are brought be the faithful there at the appointed time. The butchers usually engage more helping hands for handling the operation in an organised manner.
The fee for their services is relatively higher than other arrangements described later. The butchers oblige their regular customers by charging lower fee as compared to the faithful who wish to avail their services only on Baqr Eid. This makes good business sense. Booking is said to be made a few days in advance and sometimes tokens are issued. The arrangement though convenient is patronised mostly by the rich.
Some of the butchers after initiating slaughtering process in one house move to other houses in the neighbourhood, without completing the rest of the two or three stages in the process. This way they sort of establish their right over more business than they could get otherwise. However, this causes inconvenience to the faithful who are left in a lurch for hours until the butchers return to slice the meat.
To every customer the butchers say that the slaughtering would be done and over quickly but obviously they do not mean it. The process of cleaning and slicing the meat is often compromised by the butchers.
The butchers, specialising in slaughter of large animals such as cows or camels, also start slaughtering smaller animals such as goats and sheep. Lager animals require more time and effort and the team handling such animals cannot easily cope with more than a few animals in a day. The same team might be able to handle about five times of the number of goats. This switchover enhances their income as the fee for large animals are about twice the rate for the smaller animals.
However, it is a different story when a butcher specialising in the slaughter of small animals dares to tackle a large sacrificial animal. He would not be able to skin the animal properly and prepare the meat without crushing the bones.
Management committees of different mosques and religious schools also arrange slaughter of sacrificial cows that are purchased by them on behalf of the faithfuls.
The committees sometime engage a regular butcher but often most of the work is handled by youthful volunteers with rudimentary knowledge of slaughter of sacrificial animals and processing of the meat. This is generally done near the mosques or the schools, all skins or hides are understandably gifted. At some places, services for slaughtering of goats and sheep are also offered for a price.
The sacrificial animals are generally healthier than the animals that are slaughtered by the butchers throughout the year for selling meat. The meat from the sacrificial animals tastes much better though with lot of fat as compared to the meat we buy from the meat-shops. However, as every body is in a rush, the whole process particularly the skinning of the animals and the slicing of the meat is handled with less than due care.
As a result, the skins donated to the mosques, schools and the poor; fetch lower prices because of damage caused by the unprofessional 'butchers'. This is a national loss and must be averted through refresher courses for butchery to Eid-Time 'butchers'.
Certain teams of Eid-Time butchers become experts like regular butchers if the team remains intact and handle the slaughter of sacrificial animals for a few seasons. However, many of such butchers are novices. Most faithful fall prey to these novices as they are easily available and demand lower fee for complete process.