Feeding and the Camelid Diet
Future Quote
Anon.
Arabian Camels (Dromedaries)
Camels developed several feeding behaviours to help them live in the dry, arid conditions of their desert home. (Hilde Gauthier-Pilters and Anne Dagg, p. 59)
The camel eats a wide range of plants.
It samples plants over a wide area, instead of overgrazing in one area and destroying the desert vegetation in a small area.
It can eat the thorns, dry vegetation, and saltbush that other mammals avoid.
It can go for long periods of time without water, freeing it to graze on pastures far from wells.
It can drink an enormous quantity of water in a very short time.
In a separate study, Guthier Pilters (qtd. in Hilde Gauthier-Pilters and Anne Dagg, p. 39) compiled a list of 114 plants consumed by camels in the northwestern and western Sahara.
Camels' owners seldom give them supplementary food, allowing them to graze on the local vegetation. Even when grazing in herds, camels will spread out over a large area. As they eat, they will take a few bites from any one plant before moving on to another. Over the course of a day, a camel will eat as little as 25 pounds (10 kg) of green food and as much as much as 110 pounds (50 kg). Gautheir-Pileters and Dagg note the larger amounts "would be more appropriate for working animals, such as those in a camel camp." The amount of food a camel eats is also dependent on the kind of plants it is eating.
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