The browsing dromedary camel

Browsing preference, observations were made on 240 camels to measure time spent feeding on different plants. Each camel was followed for a maximum of 3 min in both the dry and the wet season. The camels selected a total of 21 species of plants in the dry and 30 in the wet season. On average, 0.79 and 0.83 of the camels' diet was comprised of perennial woody plants in the dry and wet season, respectively and the 10 most preferred plant species occupied 0.87 and 0.80 of the total feeding time in the dry and the wet season, respectively. The highest ranked plant was Opuntia (0.18) in the dry season and Acacia brevispica (0.22) in the wet season. The range in composition of the ten most preferred species (g/kg dry matter (DM)) were for crude protein (CP) 88-228, P 1.3-3.3, Ca 12-48, soluble tannins 29-216 and condensed tannins 9.4-129 abs. unit/g. In vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) varied between 0.41 and 0.65.