Effects of camel rearing stations on some production and reproduction characteristics of camel herds in Hormozgan province

Camel production in Hormozgan province, Iran has a relative advantage over other livestock enterprises due to lack of pastures and arid lands. In this province, a number of camel service stations have been established in order to help camel owners improve their production. The cameleers of the stations take the camels to graze on available pastures every day and help better herd management. In this research, the effect of these stations on production parameters of camel herds of the private sector has been reviewed. To achieve this goal, some questionnaires were used. Two groups of herds were compared; group one being herds receiving stations services and group two receiving no services. Sirik and Jask are the main harbor cities known to have highest numbers of service stations in the province. Data were collected from these two cities and analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. Results indicated that % 72.38 of beneficiaries were illiterate or have low level of educations. Average years of education were between 3-4 years. A significant difference between the average age of beneficiaries and herd size was observed (P<0.01). Some production parameters findings are as follows: increase in birth weight (P<0.01), increase in milk production (P<0.01), lower rate of mortality (P<0.01), average mature weight of herds (male and female) (P<0.05), lower rates of casualties due to predators (P<0.01), lower rates of road accidents and camel theft (P<0.01) were observed in the herds receiving services from the stations. While age at first calving (P<0.05), calving interval, weaning weight, length of lactation period and average of lactation period were not affected. It was concluded that the stations with control and partnership on camel herds can lower the mortality rates as well as improvement of production parameters drastically.