Gobi Desert, the home of the camels
Archaeologists have found evidence of ancient civilizations in the Gobi. The Gobi is most notable in history during the Great Mongol Empire as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road. Also, a rich collection of unique findings for Paleontology science were made in the Gobi desert of Mongolia. Rare findings of embryonic growth, petrified dinosaurs eggs, dinosaur nestlings, dinosaur hatchings and its nest and evidence of fighting between dinosaurs were found.
Among all kinds of livestock, the camel is well adapted to specific condi- tion of Gobi and desert area and able to eat the desert’s thin, thorny and salty plants, which are almost inedible for other kinds of livestock, and to drink too salty water not suitable for other animals.
A characteristic of Mongol camel is their massive, wooly and fatty body, because they are in suarctic region of the northern latitude. They are wooly since their initial one or two year age and at 5 year old age, wool yield be- comes the highest or 5.2 to 5.5 kg in average for a cow camel, and 8 to 9 kg for a bull. Soft wool accounts for 78.4% of total wool of younger camels, whereas that in adult camel accounts for 73.7%. Diameter of guard hair is 63.3 to 73.7 m, that of intermediate hair is 31.0 to 45.7 m and 14.3 to 23 m for cashmere. Hair diameter slightly varies with ageing. As compared with Kazakh breed camel, the guard hair of mongolian camel is slightly thicker, but its cashmere is finer.
Length of guard hair is 190 to 349 mm and cashmere is 77 to 141 mm for knee, neck and abdomen wool, while these are102 to 142 mm and 76 to 98 mm respectively for soft wool in Mongol camel.
Mongol camel is an animal giving various products and can produce 300 to 480 kg wool, 10 to 11 offspring for its whole live period as well as camels are able to carry 120 to 200 kg loads on its back and 250-300 kg loads on the cart mounted to it. With the importance of products, the camel husbandry, a specific branch of Mongolian livestock sector stands after sheep, goat and cattle husbandry, and produces 3.7% of total animal products to be secured per annum, 5.6% of export products, as well as it accounts for 25 to 30% of total domestic economic transportation, and 35 to 40% of incomes of Gobi provinces .
Mongols has a tradition of wider exploitation in riding and transporta- tion since immemorial time and therefore selection and breeding of pedigree bull and cow camels is historically carried out in this direction.
Because camel husbandry is one of the ancient traditional branches of Mongolian livestock husbandry sector, camel herders have rich experience of breeding, exploitation in riding and transportation, and utilizing products of camels.
Nowadays of technological progress, using mechanical transportation means mostly carries out various shipments and camels product direction is changed in order to organize breeding activities focusing on only wool and milk production. As well native Mongolian camel is a valuable gene pool of two humped camels in the world.
Because camel has longer milking period, higher milk yield, greater amount of proteins, sat, sugar, vitamins, minerals and other biologically active substances in the milk, it is utilized in curing various ailments and recover- ing neurosis. Mongol camel has lower milk yield or produces only approxi- mately 300 milk exclusive of the milk sucked by the offspring. As studied by B.Luvsan, a Mongol cow camel produced 319.8(1.04 liter milk (ranging 175 to 576 liter ) for a lactation period of 528 days ( 10).
Camel wool is a significant raw material of light industry and its cash- mere is strong, elastic, light and warm, therefore camel wool products are highly evaluated in the world market, as well as camel wool clothes are widely used with travelers in northern and southern poles of the globe of the globe, and astronauts and pilots.
Before, camel meat was not used so widely but nowadays it is consumed more. Camel is able to regain the lost body weight when grazed on the pasture and high live weight and therefore it has great meat and fat yields.
Camel hide is thicker, more flexible and stronger than other animals and it is used for making various articles. Baby camels skin is used for making clothes. Camel bone become raw material of various ornaments and hand- crafts articles, which resemble very much elephant bone articles.
Mongolia has 895,300 camels in 1953, whereas it was 357,900 in 1996 curtailed by 2.5 times or 577,400 heads and annually, 1,2% or 10,700 heads of camels were lost and products were enormously dropped. In last years, it was 559,000 in 1985 and then decreased year by year, but last 5 years the number of camels increased 350 000 in 2014.
