The desert camel as a meat animal.

Fifty-two mature, fattened male camels were used for determining live animal and carcase measurements, carcase yield and characteristics. The average slaughter weight of mature, fattened desert camels was 456 kg, while the mean empty body weight was 404·8 kg. The camel carcase dressed out as 55·8% and 63·6% of live and empty body weight, respectively. The mean carcase composition was 56% meat,19% bone and 13·7% fat. Of the body components of the camel, the head, hide and liver represented 3·5, 8·6 and 2·0% of the empty body weight, respectively. The correlations between heart girth and liveweight were high and positive. The depth of the camel hump was significantly highly correlated with carcase fat and the hump fat weight had a positive high correlation (r = 0·97, P < 0·001) with carcase fat.