KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 19

As the festive season has started, traders have started bringing live goats and mountain goats in the valley.

Considering the health safety, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has requested consumers to choose wisely while purchasing goats.

For the convenience of consumers, KMC, in association with other stakeholders, has marked the goats and mountain goats while letting them in.

As per KMC, goats with green mark are healthy, while those with red mark are unhealthy. Hence, the KMC has requested consumers only to buy goats with green mark. Goats are mostly being supplied from Birgunj, Hetauda and Pokhara for the festive season. Traders have also started selling goats from Sallaghari and Kalanki in Bhaktapur. Meanwhile, Food Management and Trading Company is also selling goats, sheep and mountain goats.

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City is going to mobilise three teams from the metropolis to check the health of the livestock being supplied in Kathmandu for the festival. It has formed three teams led by KMC officials Pooja Khanal, Anjirman Singh Dangol, and Chief of Animal Husbandry Division of KMC Dambar Bahadur

Bam to check the health of the four-legged animals.

The team will check the health condition of goats and sheep, said Bam.

“The horns of goats and sheep have been painted with green or red colour representing healthy and unhealthy goats, respectively,” he said, “Only three unhealthy goats were found during the monitoring on Saturday and Sunday.”

Amid this, the price of mountain goats has gone up as there has been no import of mountain goats from China, while there is a shortage of mountain goats in the country. The price of live Mustang Chyangra has reached Rs 750 per kg this year, while it was Rs 600 a kg last year. However, traders in Kathmandu are selling live mountain goats for up to Rs 1,000 per kg.

Nepal imports around 40,000 to 50,000 goats during the festive season. On an average, around 20,000 to 25,000 units of goats are supplied to the market through local production.