I 

 150 THE CAMEL 



CHAPTEE VII 



FEEDING 



THE greatest care should be paid to this equally impor- 

 tant branch of camel management, and, what is more, 

 too much attention cannot be lavished on it. Do not 

 lose sight of the fact that the organisation of the camel 

 is delicate, and though by means of a limited power^>f 

 abstinence he can do without food for a certain time, 

 he is in the main, as regards both watering and feeding, 

 very similar to other animals, and requires more so 

 when regularly worked to be regularly fed. 

 Thrives My experience has been that the camel thrives best 



bred in his own district, where he has been bred and accus- 

 tomed to feed on certain kinds of food, and that if you 

 take him into another climate and country under altered 

 conditions of food he does not get on so well, and falls 

 off in condition. If, for instance, you were to take special 

 breeds of Indian camels, which feed principally on the 

 leaves of certain trees 'pipal,' 'neem,' 'babul,' &c. and 

 place them in some of the deserts of the Nile, where 

 only a few stunted bushes and shrubs grow or, vice 

 versd, transfer the desert camel to India you would find 

 that they would not thrive. Of course I do not mean 

 to imply that camels accustomed to leaves will not eat 

 grass, chopped straw, or other fodder ; all I say is that 

 they do not relish, and as a rule will not eat, food which 



