Increasing camels weight

[3droms]

I was talking to another camel owner recently about increasing the weight of one of our "skinny" camels. He said that he had found that camels eating green grass do not gain weight well. He recommmended giving a biscuit of oaten hay everyday. He said that even that small amount will give good results.

[camel lady]

What is a biscuit of oaten hay and where would I get one? I have a 14 yr.old that has lost a lot of weight and the vet doesn't know why. You can see his ribs and rear bones. He hurts to get up and down.

[ozcamelgirl]

Get a square bail of oaten hay - check with produce and rural stores, classifieds in newspapers, etc - and the sections that sort of separate themselves out of the bail are called "biscuits". You should get half a dozen or so biscuits out of every bail. (Does that sound right? - someone might be more sure of the number per bail.) Good luck with your camel.

[camel lady]

Thank you for the answer to the question. I have never heard of oaten hay. I will look into that.

[3droms]

Bypass proteins are also supposed to help camels gain weight. I give my skinny boy (he had a bad bout of Barbers pole worm and was drastically underweight) soya bean meal because I can buy it easily. I think cottenseed meal has more bypass proteins in it. He loves it. He has gained alot of weight however it may just be because we controlled the Barbers pole worm (it was resistant to 2 different wormers).

[camelidman]

I had a similar problem earlier this year when we first got our camels.
I eventually settled on a mix that consists of:
Lucerne - 20 parts;
Granulated soya - 5 parts;
Oats - 3 parts;
Oil (olive, vegetable, or whatever's handy) - 2 part.

I throw it all in a plastic dustbin (approx. 50 litres in size), fill it two thirds of the ingredients, then mix it with a broom handle.
It takes just 5 minutes to get it mixed properly, then I feed approx. a quarter of it each day to my underweight female. If you have the time, then you'd probably be better mixing the oats, soya and oil first, then mix that with the lucerne to stop half of the smaller stuff dropping to the bottom, but this way works for my schedule.
She's since put on loads of weight, and still has a healthy appetite for grass and bushes. I'm about to start feeding it her again to bulk her up for winter, as her humps are still not upright.

I first started using this mix for horses and donkeys that I use to plough my fields prior to a days work, but didn't start using it on the camels straight away because I didn't know if it was safe for them. I've since learned that they love it and it seems to cause them no problems (and the lucerne will be good for their digestive systems).

I guess you've had your underweight camels' faeces tested for worms (egg count)? Just a thought (sorry if you've mentioned it above, but I only skimmed through the thread).

Jon