Eid ul Azha: Cattle attendants real heroes for provision of animals to countrymen

MULTAN, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th May, 2026) Every year, as Eid-ul-Azha approaches, millions of families across the country begin searching for the ideal sacrificial animal. They want it healthy, strong, and worthy. Rarely, however, do they stop to ask who nurtured it so carefully.

The answer lies in the dusty cattle pens of South Punjab, in the calloused hands and sleepless nights of thousands of unnamed and unrecognized men who have quietly devoted their lives to providing healthy animals for the nation. They are cattle attendants — the invisible backbone behind the provision of millions of sacrificial animals every Eid-ul-Azha.

These men rise long before the Fajr call echoes across the flat plains stretching from Dera Ghazi Khan to Bahawalpur, from Muzaffargarh to Rahim Yar Khan, Vehari, and other adjoining areas. While the rest of the country sleeps, they are already cutting fodder, checking feed, inspecting hooves, and reading the silent language of animals that cannot speak for themselves.

Their world is the cattle pen — a universe governed not by clocks or calendars, but by the rhythm of living creatures whose health and readiness depend entirely upon them. This is not a job they leave behind at five o’clock. It is a life they inhabit completely, every hour of every day, throughout the three hundred and sixty-five days that separate one Eid from the next.

Among these thousands stands Shaukat Ali, a 38-year-old cattle attendant from Vehari, who says he has not slept a full night in eleven years. Not because sleep evades him, but because duty does not permit it.

“If one animal coughs at midnight, I am there,” he says with the quiet authority of a man who has long made peace with his calling. “If one refuses to eat, I stay awake wondering why.”

Beside him is Muhammad Shaban, 31, who has missed family weddings and gatherings for years — not out of indifference, but because animals observe no holidays, and neither can he.

“I love these animals more than my own blood,” he says. “If I leave them for three days, they fall sick. If they get sick, my Eid celebration is cancelled.”

Then there is Muhammad Islam, another experienced cattle attendant who carries within him a knowledge no university has certified, yet no textbook could fully contain.

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“I can look at a bull from twenty feet away and tell you whether he will be ready for Eid,” he says confidently. “I know his diet for every week. I know when to reduce grain and when to increase green fodder. I know when he needs rest and when he needs to walk. This is not guesswork. This is science — my science.”

These three men are not exceptions. They represent thousands of cattle attendants across the country. Beneath their hard labour, each carries a private dream.

Shaukat Ali wants to build a concrete house. Muhammad Shaban hopes to send a close relative abroad. Muhammad islam desires something simpler, and perhaps harder to achieve than either — a few days of rest, to sit somewhere quietly, sip tea slowly, and watch the sunset without counting feed bags in his mind.

These are not extraordinary dreams by the standards of modern ambition. They are the modest yet luminous hopes of men who have devoted their days and nights to a task the nation depends upon, but rarely acknowledges.

Despite their vital role in the agricultural economy, most cattle attendants earn between fifteen and twenty thousand rupees a month — wages that have barely increased while the cost of living continues to rise sharply. Many live in or near cattle sheds without proper sanitation, reliable electricity, or access to basic healthcare. Yet they remain committed to their work.

In an age where heroism is measured in viral moments and verified accounts, these men exist entirely offline. No documentary follows their days. No award ceremony calls their Names. No hashtag carries their stories.

But every Eid, when a family gathers around a sacrificial animal and says “Bismillah,” a part of that sacred act belongs to the man who woke before dawn for an entire year to prepare for that moment.

There is an urgent need to acknowledge their matchless services. Their wages should be increased so they can meet their expenses with dignity. They deserve healthcare. They deserve proper housing. Most importantly, they deserve recognition that tells their children this work is not something to be ashamed of, but something to be proud of.