Energy and Protein Requirements For Productivity

Maintenance

Maintenance requirements are those required to keep and animal’s body functioning in a stable state. In grazing animals maintenance can also be considered to include ‘the requirements for movement while feeding.

Milk production

The demands for milk production are high in terms of energy. The requirement for one liter of milk is equivalent to almost 10 per cent of the maintenance requirement. In terms of protein, milk is even more demanding of nutrients and one liter requires about 20 per cent of the maintenance

Requirement of a 400 Kg. female. The daily requirement of 15 Kg. of milk could not be met from free range grazing and a concentrated feed would be required. If recent claims of 40 liter yields are to be believed, it would be of great practical interest to have a clear statement of the feed intake of these animals.

Meat production

It has been claimed the camels fatten rapidly when fed 15 to 20 Kg. of a mixture of straw, beet pulp silage, molasses and 10 to 15 per cent barley grains and that camels feeding on growing sugar beet tops gains as much as 1.5 Kg. per day and can be made ready for slaughter in 60 days. Corroborative work is needed to determine if these rates can be repeated but it should always be borne in mind that the comparative advantage of the camel is in harsh environments. High quality feeds are probably better fed to

Advanced ruminants in this context.

Work

Camels appear to be at least as efficient as other traction animals in producing draught power but their main work output is in the form of pack transport. Energy is the main nutrient loss in any form of work and this need to be replaced by food, if camels produced an output of 455 watts

And energy is converted to power at an efficiency of 20 percent, the energy expended is equivalent to 8, 2 MJ per hour. Although it is reasonable to assume that pack animals expend similar amounts of energy for a similar

Output, no data are available. Working camels on supplementary feed usually have an excess of protein provided, while milking camels are usually deficient in protein supply. Camels in traditional herds are normally expected to provide work for short periods at a time and it is possible this is due to a lack of energy; this suggestion is supported by the fact that in these herds it is only male baggager camels that are normally provided with supplementary feed.