Neighborhood camels

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I was motoring along on a quiet country highway and had to do a double take when I first saw the camels.

A second glance confirmed the first. There stood a pair of camels in a pasture located about four miles from our farm. My first thought was, “Whoa. Are those really camels?”

Indeed, they were. The dun-colored hump-backed herbivores looked out of place as they serenely chewed their cuds amidst the emerald green of the prairie pasture. Paint everything a dull brown and park a pyramid and some sand dunes behind them and you could swear that you were looking at a pack of cigarettes.

It wasn’t long before I became acclimated to the idea of camels residing in the neighborhood. Their numbers seemed to gradually increase, but who’s keeping track? Besides, camels have lived here before. About 11,000 years ago, their very distant ancestors may have grazed on that same patch of prairie.

Being afflicted with a curious nature, I decided to drop in at the Post farm and see what the story was behind their bizarre choice of livestock.

I chatted with Kerry Post, who, with her husband, Denny, owns a handful of dromedaries. The Posts have three adult children.

I asked Kerry what prompted them to purchase such unattractive ungulates.

“Denny bought them to be sort of a hobby. We just think that camels are nifty and unusual.”

Are they hard to keep?

“Not at all. They do just fine on pasture and will even go after the thistles and the sandburs. They are excellent browsers; you can put them in the shelter belt, and they will clean out all the underbrush.”

What do they eat in the wintertime?

“Whatever we feed our cattle. Camels think corn silage is candy.”

How do they take our frigid Dakota winters?

“The cold doesn’t bother them one bit. They grow a thick, shaggy coat that gives them excellent protection from the elements. If you shove your hand into their winter coats, it will probably go well past your wrist.”

They sure have funny-looking feet.

“Their feet are actually quite soft. Even though a camel can weigh 1,500 pounds, it doesn’t hurt all that much if they step on your toe. Not nearly as much as a cow or a horse, anyway.”

Are camels good mothers?

“They certainly are. Their gestation lasts a full year, after which they give birth to a gangly, knobby-kneed calf that weighs about 300 pounds. If a cow doesn’t want you messing with her calf, she might try to push you down and smush you under the tough pad they have at their sternum.”

I take it that camels have strong herd instincts.

“Absolutely. If a camel gets out, it never goes very far; it will invariably wander back to where the others are. And they’re fearless in the face of predators. We’ve had zero problems with coyotes since we’ve had the camels.”

What else are they good for? Like, do you ride them?

“Yes, there are a couple that we can ride. But mostly they’re used for Nativity scenes around Christmastime. We also take them to small town celebrations to be a part of petting zoos.”

What’s it like to ride a camel?

“It gets a bit bumpy when they hit a gallop. Camels run goofy. Unlike horses, who synchronize their front and back legs, camels swing both legs on each side in unison. They also stretch out their neck, and their head bobs up and down like crazy. It’s sort of a comical sight.”

They must burn through a lot of fodder in a year. How can you justify the expense?

“Well, let’s put it this way: a yearling bull calf is worth about $10,000.  A yearling heifer can fetch $14,000 or more.”

Whoa. That sort of money can buy a lot of hay. By the way, they sure have weird lips. Their upper lips are both hairy and a hare lip.

“That split upper lip is an adaptation to help them browse those tough desert plants. One of our cows came from a circus and I guess some of the circus guys had taught her how to hold a pop can with her lips and drink from it.”

Ha. I’d pay money to see that.

“Yeah, well. We didn’t want to give our kids any ideas.”

I left the Post farm with a newfound respect for the camel, an animal that has been oft derided as “a horse designed by a committee.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a camel is put together exactly right – that is, from a camel owner’s point of view.

Jerry Nelson is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar.com.