A study was carried out in three locations of north eastern Kenya i.e. Saka, Kutulo and Bute to establish the forage species preferred by camels and their chemical composition in an effort to improve productivity of camels and that of the range. Different methods were used to collect data including focus group discussions, field observation of grazing camels, sampling and laboratory analysis of forage species.

The results indicated that over 90% of forage species selected by the camels during the wet season were shrubs. For 49% and 43% of the plants, camels were selecting the leaves and, leaves and tender twigs, respectively with only 6% of the plants being eaten whole in the wet season. The camels were spending between 56 and 86% of their grazing time on an average of 9 preferred plants per site. During the dry season, camels across the study sites were mainly depending on evergreen shrubs as well as collecting dry leaves of the usually preferred shrubs from the ground as grasses and herbaceous grazing materials were hardly available. The camels were mainly concentrating on leaves and twigs, spending 71% to 100% of their grazing time on an average of 7 plants per study site in the dry season. The average dry matter (DM) content of the plants was 91% while the crude protein (CP) averaged 7.2%. The neutral detergent fibre (NDF) was in the range of 35 to 79% with an average of 58% of DM. The energy content of the forage species was in the range of 2.5 to 4.4 Kcal/g of DM with an average of 3.7. The study concluded that the chemical composition of the forage species available for camels in the three study sites at the time of sampling was below the recommended level for grazing camels. The camels in the area would therefore require supplementation with both protein and energy during prolonged dry and drought periods to sustain production.