Response of camel calves for fattening under intensive feeding regimes [electronic resource].

Includes references.

This study was carried out on two experiments. The first experiment was conducted as a pilot experiment lasted 30 day on fifteen Sudanese camel calves (Camelus dromedaries) aged 2-3 years and weighted 268.6±42.49 Kg to determine selectively dry matter intake (free consumption) from concentrate feed mixture (CFM) and clover hay. The second one was fattening experiment prolonged 120 day using the same animals, which reached on average of 288.5±41.14 kg to evaluate replacement clover hay (control) with untreated rice straw (URS) or urea treated rice straw (TRS) to decrease feeding costs. The animals were divided into three equal groups in weight and fed CFM at 1.55 % of body weight, which represents 75% of dry matter intake as determined in the first experiment. The fattening experiment showed no significant differences in DMI among the three groups. There was no significant (P<0.05) difference between control and TRS groups in the digestibilities of DM, OM, CP, CF, NFE and the nutritive value as TDN or DCP. While, the previous parameters were significantly (P<0.05) lower for URS compared with control or TRS groups. The total water intake as well as the insensible water loss was significantly (P<0.05) higher when animals fed TRS ration comparing with the other groups. The nitrogen balance of control and TRS groups was similar and significantly (P<0.05) higher than URS group. The daily body weight gain of URS group was significantly (P<0.05) lower than control and TRS groups being 525, 593 and 600 g respectively. The TRS and control groups were more feed conversion efficiently (P<0.05) than URS group, being 10.24, 10.36 and 11.76 (DMI/gain), respectively. As a result of reducing feeding costs (LE/head/day) significantly (P< 0.05) for the TRS and URS groups vs. the control group, being 3.24, 3.20 and 4.10, respectively, feeding camel calves on TRS ration gave the highest profit followed by URS then control group, being 115.2, 57.6 and 7.20 LE/h/period. It could be concluded that clover hay could be entirely replaced with rice straw either treated or not treated with urea molasses mixture to reduce feeding costs as well as achieving more profit.

Summary in Arabic.

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