Effects of feed intake of a complete concentrate diet on performance of Omani camels raised under stall-feeding

The current experiment was designed to study the performance of Omani camels offered various levels of feed under stall-feeding. Twelve weaned Omani male camels (6-8 month old and 203.5± 15.5 kg average body weight, BWT) were housed in partially shaded pens and fed a concentrate and Rhodesgrass hay (RGH) diet at a 60:40 then 80:20 concentrate:hay ratio for 23 weeks. The concentrate and RGH contained 92.5 and 91.5% dry matter (DM); 14.4 and 9.4 crude protein (CP); 1.8 and 1.1 ether extract (EE); 12.1 and 9.6 ash; 19.3 and 30.6 crude fibre (CF), 24.1 and 35.8 acid detergent fibre (ADF); 51.3 and 68.3 nitrogen detergent fibre (NDF) as per cent in the DM, respectively. Camels were allocated according to BWT to 3 groups of 4 camels each. They received a feed intake equivalent to 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5% of body weight, respectively for 162 days at the end of which all camels were slaughtered. The average daily gain over the experimental period was 71,347 and 400 g/d for the animals given 1.5,2.0 and 2.5% BWT intake, respectively. The mean final body weight of camels was 256.6 ± 32.3 kg (range 218-322 kg). The average daily feed intake (concentrate + hay) was 2.522,4.232 and 5.157 kg for camels fed 1.5,2.0 and 2.5% BWT, respectively. The feed intake expressed as a per cent of BWT was 1.2,1.8 and 2.2% for camels fed 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5% BWT, respectively. This study demonstrated that camels may be raised under stall feeding systems with no major health or management problems.