Oman study on feasibility of camel meat production

Muscat:  A team Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) researchers are conducting a study on the meat quality and feasibility of meat production of Omani camels.

According to the research team at the College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences, the farmers in the country is yet to ascertain the potential of camel meat production 

The study entails offering the specimen camels three different levels of nutrition according to their body weight and monitoring their performance and health status. The project also includes studying the carcass composition and meat quality attributes of camel meat.

The study is being carried out on 12 camels, purchased from Dhofar in southern parts of Oman. The camels, bought when they were four to six months of age are now aged between 14 to 16 months.

They have been brought to the Agricultural Experiment Station of SQU and housed in open sided enclosures. The daily feed intakes are determined. Camels are weighed every month to determine gain in body weight. Blood samples are drawn monthly to evaluate their blood picture.

At the end of a six months period, the camels would be slaughtered in the Central Slaughterhouse in Bausher and their meat quality evaluated.

The researchers said that the project would enable studying meat production abilities of the camels maintained under intensive management by determining their growth rate, feed conversion and carcass and meat quality.

The camels are fed varying qualities of feed ranging from a high plane of nutrition (2.5% of their body weight) to poor level (1.5% of body weight). Health parameters including hematological and serum biochemistry values are determined for camels under high and low planes of nutrition as a baseline for assessing the physiological status of camels in health and disease. The preliminary results show that the health of the camels as excellent and those on high feed intake gained about 500 to 600 grams of weight per day.

Prof. Osman Mahgoub Gaafar, the Principal Investigator of the research project hopes that the outcome of the study benefit for Omani camel breeders and meat industry to find their enterprises on scientific basis. It will also help improving the camel meat quality in the Omani market.

“Traditionally, camels are grown by local farmers for racing and breeding purpose,” the researcher said.

The camels are slaughtered once they finish their careers at the age between 10 to 15 years. In this case, the meat quality will be poor. The ongoing study is important in the economic point of view because it is expected to set an example for farmers to grow camels commercially under feedlot conditions for meat purpose”, commented Prof. Osman.