Physiology of lactation and machine milking in dromedary she-camel

Abstract

Dromedary camels have the capability and the genetic potential to achieve high levels of milk production. However, systematic breeding programs to increase milk production are not common in this species. Dromedary camels are not well adapted to machine milking. Milk removal obviously requires in most farms a pre-stimulation through calf suckling before the milking machine can completely harvest the stored milk. In camels, most of the milk is stored in the alveolar compartment (>90-95%) of the udder. Therefore, almost no milk can be obtained in the absence of milk ejection. In addition, the morphological, anatomical and physiological properties of the camel udder are complex and not fully understood. Because of all biological and economical limitations related to machine milking dromedary camels are mostly hand-milked. The introduction of machine milking makes only slow progress and is limited to intensive dairy camel farms in a few countries. Machine milking of dromedary camels showed so far acceptable results. However, some studies clearly showed that udder emptying by machine milking with the available equipment is not satisfactory. The amount of residual milk after machine milking is high and was up to 30 % or even more of the stored milk in some studies. This means that the used machine needs to be improved to fit the camel's udder. Nevertheless, some studies clearly showed that a major proportion of dromedary camels have a suitable machine milking ability.

The prolonged effect of GLUTAM 1M biologically active preparation on dairy productivity and milk quality of cows

“…According to literary sources [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], the increase in the service period causes an increase in the total amount of milk during lactation. It causes a deterioration in the reproductive capacity of cows.…”

Milking Machine Settings and Liner Design Are Important to Improve Milking Efficiency and Lactating Animal Welfare—Technical Note

“…New research emphasized that the frequency of bimodalities with both pre-stimulation and without pre-stimulation was higher at high vacuum level than at low vacuum level [19]. The use of high milking vacuum for camels could lead to udder health problems reflected by a high somatic cell count in the produced milk and a negative impact on the health status of the teats [18]. A positive relationship between increasing working vacuum and somatic cell counts in the milk has been found in buffalo [38] and other dairy species [14,[39][40][41].…”

“…Moreover, it should be noted that insufficient pre-stimulation can lead to poor milking performance, especially in cows, camels, and buffalo, which have small udder cisterns and large amount of alveolar milk [1,[16][17][18][19]. A new study has shown that efficient machine milking requires an optimal interaction between the alveolar milk ejection in the udder induced by hormonal posterior hypophyseal oxytocin release, smooth muscle contraction of the alveolar myoepithelial cells and thereafter the milk removal by the milking machine [19].…”

Study of the Milkability of the Mediterranean Italian Buffalo and the Tunisian Maghrebi Camel According to Parity and Lactation Stage

“…Alveolar milk, however, is only available if it is actively expelled as a result of the concentration of oxytocin in the blood during milking [11]. Also, both are very sensitive to environmental stimulus before and during milking which explains the disrupted milk ejections observed for buffaloes [8,12] and camels [13,14]. In addition, because of external udder morphology similarities with bovine species, these animals are usually milked with the same milking equipment but with different settings to respect the physiological needs of each species [14][15][16].…”

“…Also, both are very sensitive to environmental stimulus before and during milking which explains the disrupted milk ejections observed for buffaloes [8,12] and camels [13,14]. In addition, because of external udder morphology similarities with bovine species, these animals are usually milked with the same milking equipment but with different settings to respect the physiological needs of each species [14][15][16]. Evaluation of milkability characteristics in nonbovine dairy animals has been reported to improve milking efficiency, reduce working vacuum on-time on empty teats [2,17,18] and could be used to select suitable animals with similar milkability traits for an optimal milking process [2,19].…”