Fat sheep, fat price for Saudi Eid festivities

RIYADH, Oct 3 (AFP): There is a whiff of sheep dung in the early evening air as the sun drops from sight and Ali Al-Shamrani ponders the market for his animals ahead of Saturday's Eid-Ul-Adha festival.
"This year they are more expensive," he says outside a pen of about 40 Saudi Arabian Naimy-variety sheep, most of them with brown heads and thick dirty-white fleece.
"There aren't too many Naimy this year," says the black-bearded trader, who trucked his animals to the Saudi capital Riyadh early this week from Hafar al-Batin in the country's north, near Iraq.
He and several other traders have set up their animal pens-and tents where they themselves rest-in one of 14 temporary market sites established by authorities in the city of 5.7 million before the Muslim feast of sacrifice.