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Pastoral productivity of Niger arid regions and their valorisation by dromedary

Chaibou M., Faye B., Lapeyronie A.. 2009. In : The Second Conference of the International Society of Camelid Research and Development, Djerba, Tunisia, 12th - 14th March, 2009 : abstracts. Djerba : ISOCARD, p. 130-130. Conference of the International Society of Camelid Research and Development. 2, 2009-03-12/2009-03-14, Djerba (Tunisie).

The arid areas are characterized by an annual rainfall less than 150 mm/year. Beside this very low quantity, rain is irregular in time and space. In these conditions, the pastoral productivity is very low in some places and absent in others. The extensive production systems, in particular the dromedary production system, present in these areas are adapted to this situation. This study was undertaken in Agadez (Niger), to evaluate the total forage production of pasture as well as the quantity consumed by dromedary. The pastoral productivity was determined by the method of "Integral Collect" of the grass contents in "Small Square" laid out through the surface sampling. Tree biomass production was estimated by the Ickowicz (1995) "Allometric Regressions" established for tropical trees. Feed ingestion on pasture was determined indirectly by chemical analysis of faeces in 8 she camels which was used to estimate the contribution of ingested rations and the nutritive elements were estimated on the basis of chemical composition which is the reflection of the botanical composition of the regime. The ponderal performance was evaluated monthly by weighing the calves (n = 7) with an electronic balance Type AG 500 and by barymetrics measurements. The assessment of these fodder resources showed an annual production of 382 ± 82.9 kg DM/ha which represented globally 213.1 ± 36.3 UFL/ha and 11.2 + 1.5 kg of DNM/ha. The ingestion of the dry matter (DM) on pasture varies from 1.2 to 2.2 kg of DM/100 kg of body weight (BW) with an average of 1.6 ± 0.3 kg of DM by 100 kg of BW. Despite the low productivity of pasture, the dromedaries recorded a very appreciable daily body gain varying from 277 g to 374 g. (Texte intégral)

Mots-clés : dromadaire; pâturages; camelus dromedarius; niger

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