Selling animals at Friday Market

Many rich people prefer to have expensive pets and animals to show off, but behind that hundreds of businessmen are working and trading animals to make profits exceeding millions of pounds every year.

There are two parts of this business, first as a businessman you import dogs, and cats from other countries, and specialized people take care of animals and make sure they are able to reproduce. The second part is through illegal channels like Friday Market in old Cairo because the goods on sale there are stolen, second-hand or brand new but flawed. If someone is looking for spare parts, this is the place to go.

Friday Market is located under El-Tonsi Bridge in the middle of the City of the Dead, not far from Salah El-Din Citadel. It is similar to the flea market in Paris, Petticoat Lane or Brick Lane in London.

Some of the main attractions of Friday Market are animals. Pet-lovers and owners are in the market to buy or sell cats, dogs, foxes, bats, turtles, wolves, snakes, or even crocodiles at reasonable prices compared to city shops. Pet food and accessories are also on sale.

In this market, everything is sold and bought with no government control. The market serves a variety of people from the rich and the poor. According to Mohamed Saber, secretary at Cairo Governorate head office, said that "we planned to relocate Friday Market to ease the crowd and control the chaos in 2004, but these plans evaporated with the shortage of financial funds. Officials wanted to move the market near Al-Azhar Park because over there security and everything can be controlled."

In the Friday Market, Manal Eissa, animation team member at the national circus, said that “I just sold this 3m yellow snake for 15 thousand pounds.” “I bought it for 5 hundred pounds when it was only 50cm,” she said.

“Animals are like antiques, the older they are, the more expensive to buy” said Eissa. When she mentioned that it could be a successful business if you have someone expert that can deal with medications and food. If you hire some animal specialist you can open dogs’ farm and make a lot of money by selling pure kinds of dogs.

According to Gamal Abd-Allah, owner of animals shop, he confirmed that “trading animals does not make expected profits and it has high risk at the same time.” He added “it is risky because you are dealing with a living animal that can easily get infected with diseases and if you did not pay attention it might die and you lose your money.”

Abd-Allah refused to say the prices of animals and commented saying “some people might find the prices ridiculous but at the end, there are levels as you can buy dogs starting from 3 hundred pounds till thousands of dollars.”

Nevin Hosny Hamad, veterinarian and owner of private animal clinic, said “there is a rising interest of people in owning animals nowadays; it is becoming like a fashion.” There is high demand on animals particularly dogs, especially in new cities because people use them for security reasons as Hamad elaborated.

This helped people understand more about how to raise their pets, but there are some common mistakes that people still do, for instance, dogs depend on their friends who are responsible for feeding them so people need to spend more time with their pets.

Hamad confirmed that cats and dogs are fashion like cars and clothes. The popular dog is German Shepeard and the famous cat is Shiraz.

Mohamed Salah, veterinarian and owner of a private pets’ clinic, said “people are not aware that pets are responsible for spreading more than 200 diseases.” He also recommended that media must increase awareness by making documentaries and show them on TV.”

Dog’s owner spends around 240 pounds monthly for dried food and 200 pounds annually for medications. “Shampoo, vitamins, tooth brush, and eye drops are important for dogs to maintain good health and cutting their nails is important as well.” said Salah.

Don’t take anything valuable along because you never know, you may just find it on sale on your next visit.