Fat sheep, fat price for Saudi Eid festivities

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 al-Adha festival.

"This year they are more expensive," he said outside a pen of about 40 Saudi Arabian Naimy-variety sheep, most of them with brown heads and thick dirty-white fleeces.

"There aren't too many Naimy this year," said 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.