TheImprovement ofTropical and Subtropical Rangelands

266 IMPROVEMENT OF TROPIOAL AND SUBTROPIOAL RANGELANDS
kg in Afar camels in Ethiopia. The lactation period may last for 18
months: up to a year is considered normal under traditional pastoral
management. This means that the owner of a number of camels can
have safe access to milk throughout the year.
In areas with only one rainy season, a majority of the camels are
sometimes at the end of their lactation just before the onset of the
rains, and the end of the dry season may involve a critical period
of food shortage for the pastoralist if he has no access to grain or
other products that are unrelated to camel rearing. It is interesting
to note that one of the few areas where there are almost totally
subsistence-oriented camel pastoralists is in northern Kenya, which
has an expected pattern of two rains per year. There, sections of the
Rendille and Gabbra live almost exclusively on the products of their
camels and small stock.
There are, however, some impediments to milk production even
in that region. IT one or two consecutive rains fail, there may be
a delay in camel reproduction-and hence in lactation-which is
more serious than such delays would be in cattle rearing or smallstock
pastoralism. A camel may go one or even two years without
beginning a new lactation. Moreover, there is a risk that all the
camels go in milk simultaneously, which gives one year of abundance
at the cost of the next year's milk supply.
Milch goats and sheep for slaughter ensure a more reliable supply
of food. Goats come into milk quickly after the onset of rains. This
is one of the reasons that camel rearing is frequently combined with
the husbandry of small stock.
Subsistence pastoralists rarely slaughter camels for meat. Slaughter
is reserved for ritual occasions or when there are other large gatherings
or when the camel is old or weak, and even then it depends
upon the value of females for reproduction and of males for a wide
range of alternative uses. To slaughter a camel is a major decision,
but the gap left when a goat or sheep is killed is quickly filled: the
meat of the smaller animal can also easily be consumed by the family
without involving any larger group in communal sharing.
In northern Kenya, camels are occasionally bled to provide for
particular human demands of iron, salt, and other nutrients. The
use of camel blood as human food seems to be restricted to those
Nilotic peoples who have acquired camels (notably the Turkana), to
camel-owning Borana groups, and to the most western Somali. It is
not acceptable to orthodox Muslims.
Apart from the production of milk, meat, and blood, camels