Bagerhat youth expects high return from sheep farm

BAGERHAT, Mar 02(UNB): A young man in the district has started rearing fat-tailed sheep, a species of domesticated animal more common in desert regions like the Middle East countries, at his village commercially.

Fuad Hasan, a university graduate with BBA specialisation, has self-employed himself by establishing a sheep farm on two acres of land at his native Attaki village in Fakirhat upazila.

Many people, more importantly the unemployed youths, have already started thronging around his farm to know about the initiative.

The young farmer has created man-made desert at the farm area for rearing the desert species in an apparently unfamiliar weather here.

"I started sheep farming two months ago with five hybrid species - two females and one male--- of the desert animals. Within a gap of only three weeks, one of female sheep gave birth to two of its kind and two others are also bearing their own babies," said Fuad.

A newborn sheep needs three to four years to become adult and each adult can weigh between 100 kgs and 120 kgs, said Mr Fuad.

The demand for this breed of sheep increases ahead of Eid-ul-Azha as many devotees prefer those animals for their sacrifice as they think this type of sheep hail from the holy land, Saudi Arabia, he said.

"I wish to spread this farming across the country as it will reduce unemployment here as well as bring huge foreign currency if we can commercially grow those species of animal," he said.

Sheep are in many ways similar with goats in their eating habits, they live on tree leaves, peanuts and grass, creating huge chances to bring them in farming in Bangladesh commercially, according to Fuad.

Each adult can be sold for Tk 0.25 million to Tk 0.3 million. Its meat and milk are very tasty and healthy, the newly self-employed man said.

Fuad said many unemployed young people want to venture into sheep farming amid ever-growing employment crisis here, but they cannot due to lack of proper knowledge regarding sheep rearing.

Visiting Fuad's farm site, an educated youth coming from nearby village, Sheikh Rezaul Karim, said, "Fuad has brought the idea of farming sheep here in our locality."

"Before visiting his sheep farm, my knowledge regarding it was confined only to books and television shows. But now I've learned many things about this farming", he said.

"I want to start my own one as early as possible, as we'll now get practical knowledge from Fuad," the employment seeker went on saying.

Dr Pushpen Kumar Sikdar, Livestock Resource Officer of Fakirhat upazila, said sheep farming has a very good prospect in Bangladesh as they can easily adjust with tropical weather existing here.

They're as easy to nurture like goats. Sheep farming can be one of the most profitable farming in the country as in Middle-eastern countries. It can meet up the country's demand for both meat and milk, he said.

"We can even earn foreign exchanges by exporting the milk and meat of the animal after meeting up our own demands," the livestock officer expressed the hope.