As I'm working to chalk out a model for the assessment of the camel as a dairy animal. The selection criteria of the dairy camel can be the following;
Milk production 40 % value/weight
Udder conformation 15
Milking ability (machine) 20
Health 15
what about the BCS and others?
Hello Raziq.
As a starting point a good female camel of milking type should have a faultless body and udder conformation (for details see my article on standard). From such pool of camels a second selection can be then done considering:
1. age and weight at 1st calving: 4 years body weight 500 kg or over (up to 15 points)
2. mothering instinct : gentle easily allows approach and touch of the udder: (up to 5 points)
3. calving interval: 2 years (up to 15 points)
4. lactation length: 13 months 1 months x calf 12 months milked: (up to 10 points)
5. daily yield at 4-6th month: 10 liters or over (up to 35 points)
6. Milking (up to 20 points)
a) let down reflex: easy (easy milked in unfamiliar surroundings: easily trained for machine milking)
b) Milking duration (time of actual flow of milk): as long as possible: 2 minutes or over
In my opinion the scoring of Body Conditions or Health is not necessary since their evaluation is already built in the above parameters. A female in poor BC or not healthy will obviously score poorly on some or all points 1-3-4-5. The advantage of using this approach is that it will be difficult to end up judging a poor milker but fat camel as a camel with good dairy potential. There are a lot of fat camels in UAE (KSA etc.) that look good but are NOT good milkers !
A second advantage on using the above mention criteria points is that REAL good milking type camel will be selected. Camels producing 20 liters a day but delivering a calf every 4-6 years or with a lactation of 6 months are good for shows but should not be selected as dairy types!
www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex9622/.../bcs-bison.pdf
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