Management of draught camels (Camelus dromedarius) in crop-livestock production systems in Northwest Nigeria

I Mohammed and I Hoffmann*

Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, PMB 2346 Sokoto, Nigeria
* Department of Livestock Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Ludwigstr.21, 35390 Giessen, Germany
Irene.Hoffmann@fao.org

Abstract

Camels are increasingly being used as draught animals in Northern Nigeria. The study aimed at assessing the feeds and feeding management practices of farmers who own camels and to formulate an optimal feed ration, and to compare the gross margin with that of draught oxen. Interview data were collected in four villages of two Local Government Areas of Sokoto State, Nigeria.

The average gross margin of farmers who owned camels exceeded that of farmers owning oxen by 21 %. This can be attributed to the limited utilisation of oxen for other purposes apart from ridging and weeding. Feeding costs were lower for one camel than for one pair of oxen.

Keywords: Camel, draught power, crop-livestock integration, Northern Nigeria

Introduction

Dromedaries in Nigeria are concentrated in the semiarid northern part of the country. The introduction of the camel into northern Nigeria can be linked to the caravan trade links between the Sahara and Sokoto, Katsina or Kano, Fachi and Bilma (Ritter 1988; Bernus 1990). FDCPLS (1992) estimated the population of camels in northern Nigeria as 74,360. About 60 % of this stock is found in the former Sokoto State (Table 1).

The most widely used source of animal power in Nigeria is the oxen harnessed in pairs, which can be used for 5 to 6 working hours per day. The casual use of the camel as draught animal was reported by Musa (1990). The camel is, however, increasingly becoming important in primary land preparation and secondary field operations during the rainy season. Farmers in the northern states are exploiters of camels rather than producers, since the camels are mainly bred by nomads.

Besides the initial investment in the procurement of the draught animals, meeting the feed requirements of work animals is the most important management problem in north-west Nigeria. Practices include free grazing and the utilisation of crop residues in the dry season. Camel and oxen differ with regard to feeding habits. The camel is a browser (Farid et al 1984). Abbas et al (1995) found that dromedaries spent 81 % of their feeding time on herbs and Acacia bushes, and only 19 % on grasses, with Bracharia and Aristida species being the most preferred species. Wilson (1989) observed that dromedaries take as much as 90 % of their diet from browse plants. An important feature of their browsing habits is that they are not in direct competition with other domestic stock either in terms of the type of feed eaten or in the height at which they eat above the ground (Wilson 1989; Schwartz 1989; Table 2). Examining the adaptation strategies of the camels on a thornbush pasture in northern Kenya, Rutagwenda et al (1989) observed that unlike cattle, camels are able to seek out herbs, fruits and succulent leaves of a great variety of plants. Cattle and sheep were found to prefer grasses, herbs and small shrub vegetation at ground level (approximately 70 % of their grazing time). Such vegetation type undergoes more severe seasonal fluctuations in both, quantity and quality, than the large deep rooted trees and shrubs preferred by camels. In 90 % of their total feeding time during the dry season, camels consumed 22-27 plant species, compared to only 8 taken by cattle. Camels were also observed to consume a lower proportion of poor quality plants in their diets.

Camels feed diurnally or nocturnally and are unrivalled in their ability to utilise desert and semi-desert vegetation (with certain attributes; thorny, odorous and secretive) which are unpalatable and unacceptable or inaccessible to many other animals (Schwartz et al 1983; Ghaji and Adegwa 1986; Yagil 1994). The camel can also be fed with green fodder or concentrates and can utilise a wide range of agricultural by-products.

The aim of the study was to assess the feeds and feeding management practices of farmers who own draught camels and to formulate an optimal feed ration, and to compare the gross margin with that of draught oxen.

Material and methods

An explorative study on work camel and oxen was conducted in 3 villages of Tambuwal Local Government Area and in Bislam village, Dange-Shuni Local Government Area of Sokoto State (n=40). In Bislam, 25 camel owning farmers were visited repeatedly in 1995/96. The farmers were visited at their farms to observe and discuss how they use camel for farm and other household tasks. They were interviewed, using structured questionnaires, on their farming activities, use of farm inputs such as land, labour, types of crops grown and the role of the camel in their farming activities. Data on investment requirements and management practices, and the different uses of camels and income generated by work camels were collected from the farmers.

Since feed costs represent the majority of variable costs, an optimal feed combination for work camels as compared to oxen was determined using the Linear Programming (LP) programme of the SAS software (Version 6.12). The model is represented as follows:

Minimise: Z = a_ij* X_ij

Subject to: a_ijX_ij > b_i and X_ij > 0 .

where:

Z = objective function for least cost ration for a work camel;
a_ij price per unit of feed material X_ij;
b_i is the vector matrix of nutrient requirements for the work camel.

The following assumptions were made in the LP model

• Animals cannot browse/graze for more than 8 hrs per day (due to danger of theft, crop damage),

• the 8 hr day has to be divided into grazing and working time,

• there is an unlimited quantity of crop residue and/or green fodder available on local markets,

• no monetary costs are associated with grazing/browsing on communal rangeland,

• the nutrient requirement of livestock is proportional to its weight,

• the DM intake does not exceed 3% of the liveweight.

A daily maintenance requirement of 50 MJ MEm for a 450 kg work animal was assumed in the model (Table 3).

Feed ration formulation was done as compared to a pair of work oxen, taking into account grazing and working time. Three levels of work intensity (1.2, 1.5 and 1.8 times maintenance) and three levels of work duration (2, 4, 6 hrs per day) were tested in two seasons (rainy / dry) with different feed availability (Table 4).

Nutrient values of the feedstuffs used in the computation were obtained from Rivière (1978) and Schaefer (1998). Prices of feedstuffs were obtained from the farmers in the study area.

The profitability of integrating the camel into sedentary farming systems was examined using gross margin analysis. Since the farm production enterprise is mainly for subsistence, most of the production inputs were home produced. The value of land was not included in the analysis because there was no market value equivalence for land in the area. Land ownership was mainly through inheritance. Market price equivalence, considered as the opportunity price, of inputs and outputs was used to arrive at the production costs of and revenue from farming activities.

For the gross margin analysis, working days for camel and oxen as given by the farmers in the interviews were included in the model (Table 5). An energy expenditure of 1.5 MEm at a 4 hr work rate was assumed. The economic life of a draught animal was assumed to be 7 years. The gross margin of the crop production enterprise was assumed to be the same for both, camel and oxen, as well as the labour quality in ploughing and weeding, and the number of days the animals worked during the rainy season (Table 5).

Results and discussion

Farmers cultivated about 2.7 hectares split, on average into 4.8 plots. This shows the extent of the fragmentation of land holding even among farmers with draught animals. The cropping pattern is dominated by cereals, intercropped with legumes (Table 6).

Besides keeping draught animals, sedentary farmers also keep other species of ruminant livestock which are used as capital, security or for meeting social/religious obligations (Table 7).