Impact of Management Practices, Dam Age and Parity on Growth Rate of Camel Calves Under Farming System

Abstract

Farming system is a new technique for Camel production in arid and sem-arid regions, two experiments were conducted on sixteen camel calves, each experiment included eight calves, they were selectedafter calving directly Camel Research Centre and Zakiet Modern Farm in Khartoum Khartoum, Sudam. To investigate on new technique of restricted suckling of calves in order to evaluate technical effect on daily weight gain of calves for sixteen weeks under semi-intensive system, in addition to assess the impact of dam age and parity on calves growth rate from birth to four months of age under intensive system. The difference of birth weight between calves of two experiments not significantly (P0.05). High weight gain (P0.05) was observed in fourth week of restricted calves compared to that freely calves that attributed to early adaptability of restricted calves on feed concentrated. In the end of experiment, the technique of restricted suckling was not effect (P0.05) on daily weight gain of calves. Whereas, no effect of dam age and parity on growth rate of calves have been observed in this study. However, camel farming system was appreciated for improve camel productivity and reduces age of maturity.