Camel Dairy | Visiting with Huell Howser | KCET

Visiting with Huell Hauser is made possible through a generous grant from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Well, this is very exciting. We don't know what's going to happen, but we are spending the afternoon. Introduce yourself with everybody. I'm Gil Riegler. And? I'm Nancy. Nancy Gil and Nancy Riegler, and exactly... This is Gulliver. This is Gulliver. Now, tell us who Gulliver is. Go ahead. Gulliver is slobbering all over everybody. He's a week-old dromedary baby, a baby camel. Uh-huh. And we've been wanting to come to your camel ranch for a long time, and you've been putting us off. Well, because why? Because you wanted to wait until there was a baby camel we could visit with. And look, here is Gulliver, and he was worth the wait. Look at this face. Because I've never really thought that camels were that attractive, were that, you know, would captivate your heart like this. But these little baby camels are amazing. They do. They really are amazing. Even the adults are really attractive. Oh, well, wait a minute. You've been around camels too long. You're telling me the adults are attractive. I do. But Gulliver is just, and look, he's only a week-old. And does he think that you're his mother and father? I mean, look, he's staying. Or just mother and mother. Sorry. He's staying right with us. Yeah, he's ready to have his afternoon bottle. And he was in a situation where his mom, she's about six years old, but she hasn't raised a baby all the way on her own yet. So when she wasn't being completely the perfect mother, we took over for her. So now we're mom. Wow, mom is here on the ranch. That's right. But not with Gulliver. Yeah, we're going to go out and see her. And she still loves him and wants to hang out with him. She just didn't want him. How can I put this? Getting really close to those very swollen udders some of the gals at home might be able to relate to that. What is this sound that Gulliver is making? Those are the grunts, just like people. You know, same thing like if you're a little hungry, you go, oh, come on, come on, come on. So he really wants, he really. He wants his bottle. He thinks the camera is something. Something's going on with the camera. Come on, Gulliver. Come on. Let's go. Come on. Look at this. They're so cute. Isn't it? And he's still kind of awkward because he's just a week old. Exactly. Very awkward. All right, well, let's bring out the milk and feed Gulliver. That's one thing. There you go. Over here. Oh, there he goes. And that'll shut him up, too, for a while. Yeah, for a while. Look at him. And after this, he'll still stay with us. He loves being petted. He loves being close to us. Look, it's got this wonderful, it feels like a sheep almost. I mean, it's got a really interesting coat to it. Yeah, it's really nice. And he has, like, very curly hair. Some of the camels are born and they have straighter hair. And there's different colors. There's white and black. Look at his little tail wagon. He's happy now, too. That's a little pump, pumping the milk in. Wow, look at this. And consider that just a week ago, this giant baby was folded up and inside mom. They come out pretty huge. Oh, how big was Gulliver when he was born? They're about 75 pounds. Gil knows because he carried him all the way from the bottom 15 acres, all the way up to the house. Cameron, I think you better come around here. This is a great shot looking at this camel drinking this milk. Oh, my gosh. Look how fast. It doesn't even stop for a breath. Now, how big will this camel get? He'll be about 7 or 8 feet tall. He's going to get very big, about 1,500 pounds at least. And how old do camels get to be? They live to about 35 or 40 years. So he'll be part of your family for the rest of your life. Yes, he will be. We're going to keep him. You put it that way. Well, it's true, but he will be. He'll be with you his whole life. And that's a real important consideration. And some people do like to have them as part of their menagerie of pets. But they're a big commitment. He's going to be coming right over. He's just going to take care of them like a mom, clean them up a little bit. Here's a little paper towel. Yeah, and just wipe him clean. Oh, we've got to clean him up, wipe his mouth. Although, a mama camel wouldn't do that so much. That's just something that human parents do because I think we're more oriented towards that. But that beautiful fur that you were talking about earlier, camels are actually also prized for their wool. And unlike an animal that you might skin the animal for the pelt, that's not what you do with camels. You actually take the molting fur. When we go out to see the big pasture, you can see that winter coat is molting off. And then you can spin it into all kinds of great camel hair sweaters. Camel hair is used all over the world. Oh, sure. For what? It's coveted. Sweaters. You can knit it into sweaters, coats, blankets, anything that you would make, that you would use sheep wool for. He's wild. Look at him. Come on, come on. Look. Oh, it's so cute. Come on, Gulliver. Come on. Come on, Gulliver. Come on, let's run. Come on. Yeah. He's so cute. Good boy. And he's still a little awkward. He's still getting his legs, isn't he? He is. And he'll be like that for the next two or three weeks. Come on, Gulliver. He's always going to be our little baby. Come on, Gulliver. Look at those legs. That was a gallop. I think that was the first one. Wow. On camera. That is just great. And he just loves you. He just loves people, doesn't he? After we feed him. Every time we feed him, we spend about 10 or 20 minutes with him, petting him and touching him and giving lots of affection. Come on. Little baby. Come on. He likes the cameraman. Yeah, we're too far now. Come on. Because I've got a new mommy. Come on. Oh, my gosh. All right. Well, we started off with a bang here. You can't get any better than a baby camel. We have more babies for you to see, and then we'll actually do the milking, too, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, because this is what your place is all about, is you're raising these camels for their milk. Absolutely. Which is opening up a whole other area of conversation, which we'll do in just a minute. Now, Gulliver can't come with us to the big camels, can he? No, he's going to have to stay over here. All right, so we're going to put Gulliver in a pen and say goodbye to him. Oh, boy, I tell you what. This is unexpected. I didn't know that this camel was going to be this cute. Come on, Gulliver. We're going to put you in the fence. Come on. Here we go. See, now you're a camel wrangler. Here we go. Oh, wow. Here you go. They're cute. Good boy. Oh, boy. We'll see you in a little while. Goodbye. We'll see you in a little while. Goodbye. What's the name of this ranch? We're Oasis Camel Dairy. Oasis Camel Dairy, and look over here. Boy, we have hit the jackpot today. Tell us about it. Now, these are obviously not babies. No, these are our adults. We have a couple of babies over here, but we have our milking camels. There's two of them over here. We have Clyde. He's our gilding. We give rides with him. We have our big bull over there that breeds our camels. Oh, my gosh. And then in that big pasture back there, we have all the rest of our camels. Now, am I going to be able to get up close to this one? I'm not sure that this one's quite as friendly as little Andy. You can try it. Now, what's going to happen? He's nice. He's going to smell you, actually. Come on, Cameron. Come on in. He's going to say hello. And the way that he says hello is that he actually smells you, and he does it with each nostril, so you have to get close to him. Oh, my gosh. Are you okay? He'll never bite. He never bites. No, he never bites. He just wants to smell you. He's very sweet. Well, could he smell the little baby camel on me? But it wouldn't bother him because the camels are real social, and they all like each other. They all get along really well. I'd always heard that camels had bad breath. Well, you know, they're a ruminant, and when they bring up their cud and they kind of burp, it can knock you back in little ways. So far I haven't gotten a full whiff yet. We're saving that for later. And he likes being tickled. Oh, boy. You know what? It's a little intimidating. Whoa! Now, that's not a spit. That's a sneeze, and it's probably from, again, if you have any kind of cologne or aftershave. Oh, I'm just covered in it. And now you are covered in something else. Oh, look. Look at this face over here. What's this? That's Goldie. Oh, now, she's a nice lady. She's a pretty girl. She is. She's a sweetheart. She likes the smell of your hand. So, see, there's a new smell. What are you smelling? I've never. I didn't realize that you could, that they were so affectionate. They're very affectionate. They're wonderful. So are they like pets almost? Almost. There's a lot of respect we have for them. They're big. They're 1,500 pounds, and you never want them to step at you and on you. You don't want to get them scared. But they're wonderful animals. Look at this. They love attention from people. Why have I always heard not great things about camels? Why have they gotten a bad name? Our theory is when they're treated badly for a long period of time, you know, they're so sensitive that they respond, you know, like that. But otherwise, when you treat them good, they really know how to respond kindly. Look at these camels. They're very interested. Now, this little guy is only a year older than Gulliver that we met earlier. Yeah, so this is about a year's growth. And then right below him is little Belina, named after the valley we live in, and she's a month old. Oh, look at the little. This is the one that's a month old back in here. Yep, and she's the boss. She's a holy terror. She runs the whole farm now. We all stay out of her way. Just look at this. They're very curious about everything. And they never bite. They're very gentle. They do use their lips a lot communicatively, and they will take a hold of each other. And you don't want to go out of your way to have them put their mouth over your arm just for safety purposes, but their first action is to be very sweet. Now, what's happening over here? We've got one, two, three over here. Well, when you look out over this large pasture, we have a total of 34 acres to our farm, and this is the big pasture in the back. This is our 15-acre pasture. And so, for the most part, everybody's out there. We do have a front pasture right on the highway, but we learned not to put them there on the weekends because you can't get up to Julian. People want to stop. Everybody stops. It's a traffic jam. Now, this is a good time to stand here. We're PBS. You know, we like to do things that have an educational value to them. So while we're standing here looking at these camels, let's talk just a little bit. I've done a little camel research, but camels are not new to California. They've been here for years, haven't they? Yeah, they actually originated in North America. All camels in the world originated here. And I read that that was like 40 million years ago there were camels here and that there were camels in the Los Angeles Basin as recently as 10,000 years ago. So there were camels right here in Southern California. Exactly. They were right here. So they're just kind of coming back where they started from. Yeah, they're coming home. That's what we tell people. Are these African camels? Are these Asian camels? I don't even know what to ask. Arabian camels. Yeah, exactly. The Asian would have two humps. And these are the Arabian that have one hump, and they live more in the hot deserts of Arabia. Now I'm looking at the fur, at the hair on these things. They really do get a lot of hair. They do. And shouldn't this one be clipped or couldn't you do something with it? Look at the hair on the side of here, Cameron. I can show you over here. See, I mean, there's a lot of hair there. I can show you right over here. If you want to look at a Clyde, during this season they actually shed their fur. And if I go over here, I can actually start pulling out this hair. Oh my gosh, look. See that? You're just pulling hair right off a Clyde. I leave it in there just to protect them a little bit. And when it's ready to come out, it just pulls out just like that. Oh my gosh. Well, you shouldn't be doing this to him. But look at his face. He just loves it. They love it. He likes this. They enjoy it, yes. This is like going to a day spa. Yeah, that's the look of a camel that's happy right there. Yeah. Clyde. So they get all this long, thick hair and then it molds out. And here's the softest part. I mean, this over here is really soft. That's your hair, Clyde. He says, oh my God. Look at this. What's happening to my hair? It's so soft. It is. There's tons of it. People make wonderful sweaters and jackets, camel hair jackets. You just spin it. Exactly, they spin it. And how many times a year can you do that, get all that hair off of? Just once a year. Once a year. It comes out on its own. You go over every day and you just pull it off the camel. Well, you've left a hole in his hump up here. I know. You can't be doing that. I'm going to have to keep working on it. Yeah. Stick it back in there and fill in the hole. Wow, this is, you know, oh, look at this, Cameron. Look at the little baby over here. There's the little baby that's just, how old did you say, a month old? She's about a month right now. And they know that we're here ready to milk them. And if you look at the mother, you can see she has what looks like a little knapsack under her udder. Right over here. Yeah. And that actually is what helps us share the milk. This is an ancient form of milk sharing that was first developed by the Bedouins in the deserts. And so that's what we do. Both the mothers are wearing what's called an udder bra. We think it might actually be the first bra known to humankind. Made for a camel. That's right. And what it does is it keeps the baby out of the business until it's time to share. And then you share milk with them about four times a day. And then we also leave them in the afternoon. So it keeps the baby from getting the milk from its mother. When we're not ready, yes. Yeah, and then you get the milk. And, well, we're going to talk about that in a minute. Or we're going to talk about it now. Now, what is that sound? Impatient. He's communicating. He wants to come out here and he wants to be, you know, get some milk from his mom. Really? So he's ready to come out. He's kind of like a teenager, so he has different voices from that little baby we had. Do they make sounds at night? I mean, do you hear them out here? Yes, they do. They talk to each other at night. And when we're driving home late at night, they'll all call us and tell us how their day was. You're kidding. You can hear it in their voice. I think they've been around camels a little too long. They'll tell you how their day was. No, really. If they're upset about anything over here, you'd hear it in their voice, you know. That's when we know to come out and take a look. Yeah. Wow. Look, they are so... This camel is very, very, very inquisitive and very, very loving. Well, they're one of the smartest animals of the hoofstock type of animals. They're very intelligent. They've evolved in an area where they don't really have a lot of natural predators. So as a herd animal, instead of having to evolve all their behavior towards surviving being eaten by a large predator, they've been able to evolve a lot of more highly developed social behavior, a little bit more like an elephant. Not that they're related, but they have that type of communication and cooperative nature. They're pretty amazing. He's kind of moving away now. No, here she comes. They're ready to come out and get milked. They know it's time to get milked. You know how that goes. Well, no, you don't know how that goes. You're a boy. So they really want to be milked. They do. They get it on their clock. And plus, when they come out to give milk, we also give them a little bucket of grain. Let's walk over to Clyde one more... Wait a minute. What's this doing here? Oh, that's Stormy. That's my sheep. Oh, my gosh. I didn't know we were doing a Noah's Ark thing out here. We have a little bit of everything. Stormy's an old man. In fact, you might recognize Stormy from his role in Killer Tomatoes Eat France. He's a movie star. Oh, really? He does some tricks, and he's a very old man. He's about 12 years old. And here's your dog over here. Now, do all these animals get along well? They do get along really well. They do. I mean, Stormy doesn't want to go right in with the big camels because they'll play too much. Yeah. So he just kind of gets to run around the farm and eat grass. I was just thinking about, you know, stereotypes about camels. Now, can camels really go forever without drinking water? They can go about two weeks in the hot desert without drinking water. No water at all? No water at all, and they don't even stress. Where do they store it? Why do they... It actually goes into their bloodstream. That's where all the water goes into. They can lose about 20% of their body weight in water. And in 10 minutes, they can gain all that water. Hey, Stormy. Boy, this is... I feel like I'm doing something for the Humane Society or something for some pet adoption. A real oasis because all of our animals have come from either that she came from, Scarlet, our dog came from an animal control shelter. And Stormy, he was just a backyard accident between two sheep. Really? That resulted in Stormy, and then he came to live with us. Look at this little dog over here, Cameron. Let's don't shortchange Scarlet. Yeah. She's a great girl. She came from the shelter? Yeah, and she's actually a great... She's probably a shepherd beagle, but we think she's a camel dog because she goes in there and she'll actually, when the camels are laying down, she'll go around and lick their eyes and their ears and clean them. And if the babies go to get up before she's done, she'll take her foot and put their head down and say, no, no, no, I'm still working here. Wow. All right. Now, enough of this. It's time to get down to some serious camel milking. But what's... Well, let's... I don't want to go on. I got more questions to ask, but we got to get inside the fence here and start milking a camel. Okay. The milking process has begun. Gil is in the pen, and Nancy, we've got a camel already out. What's going to happen? What's the procedure here? This is Goldie, and her baby is Alibaba. That's the year old baby inside the pen, the biggest one. So Gil is bringing Alibaba out. We're going to go ahead and close that gate and just work with these two camels. So I'm going to go ahead and kind of line her up. Now, right away, and Cameron, if you want, you can even come around here a little bit if that helps you see. Pretty much, if we stay back and have the camera back a little ways so that she can relax. Listen to the noises that she's making. She's looking around. Gil is undoing the udder bra, and then he'll expose the udder, and the baby's waiting for that. Now, you said that we had to back off. Why is that? Well, camels are a nomadic animal. They don't have the milk ever present like a dairy cow. The milk's actually up in the body. What she does right now, and if you watch her face, see how she's become very still? She's actually releasing a chemical called oxytocin. They release it in the brain. It travels through the bloodstream and actually causes the milk to drop into the udder. So it takes a few moments, up to about 90 seconds, for the milk to become present. Now, what's happening right now underneath. The baby is trying to get the milk. He's going teat to teat to teat, and Gil is just watching. Now, this is also a great history lesson. Wait to see if the milk drops down. Exactly. But she's very tried and true, and she goes with us everywhere. She travels with us to all the fairs that we do. Now, you said a history lesson? Well, this is how humans were able to travel into the desert, by figuring out a way to share this really rich, nutritious milk with the baby camel. You have to have the baby camel with the mother. If the baby dies in the wild, the mother will dry up. She will not continue to give milk like a dairy cow. So the mother won't release the milk to a human, but will release the milk. The mother is releasing the milk to her baby over there. And then you're just going to siphon some of the milk off for your own needs. Exactly. But the baby is going to be suckling there doing its thing. Exactly. Now, you can do a technique where you have them separated, and you just put them together during the milking. And we can. Our camels, they're so smart. Our camels actually will drop just for us. But because we're just making the camel milk soap right now, we can go ahead and let the babies in there. Now, listen to this. You might want to get right up in there with Gil now. See, I'm actually milking. Oh, look at this. She dropped her milk, and the milk has moved in here into the teats. And we're going to have milk for about 90 seconds, and that's all. Oh, that's all? That's all we get is 90 seconds. And then she takes it back up. Exactly. It just closes right up here, and the milk stays up on top. So she knows her baby is through with what it needs to do, and she's getting ready to cut you off. Exactly. Wow. And within an hour, she can drop again for the baby, and he can get another 2 or 3 liters. How much milk does a camel produce? We get, with both of us milking, because when we're really seriously going in there and going for volume, we can both take either side and get 4 liters, and we can milk 3 times a day. Let's take a look at this, these teats, because you never even see these on a camel usually, do you? They're up here. You never really think about these. You never look. How many of them are there, 4? There's 4 of them. There's 2 over here and 2 on the other side. A lot of times I let the baby drink on one side, and he knows to stay on his side and not to try and mess up mine. Shouldn't you be milking just a little bit more, or are you out? Oh, no, we have more in here. We have, I think, about 30 seconds left of milk. And that will be it. It's already going. I can see that. This is so interesting. It's amazing, and it's a real calming experience because of the way the female releases the oxytocin, and she has to go into a real calm state. When you're milking 5 or 6 camels in a row, you'll finish, and your hands are a little bit sore, but you also have this real, it makes you very calm. The mothers have a really influential way of making you feel when you work around them. Well, look at the face on this mother over here. Now, she's just as happy as she can be, and there's her little baby right there with her. And they have no problem giving enough milk for humans and raising a calf to full grown. So it's really an ancient tradition that has gone through the ages in other parts of the world. Now, he's over on the other side now. Oh, he's getting the other half of the udder. Yeah, because the baby didn't really want that much. He's older, and he wants to have the grain she's getting. So what Milk Gill is doing is he's making sure he gets everything that also. Just like with dairy cattle production, you want to make sure you get the maximum so that she'll keep producing that amount. Wow. This is amazing. If anybody had ever told me that I would be around when a camel was being milked, who would have known that they had to drop the milk down, that they keep it up? Well, you're not the only one, because even when Gill traveled to the American Camel Conference and said he was going to milk camels, everybody there said, who would have thought? Now, look at this milk. Here is fresh, foamy camel milk. See, it's low in fat. That's why it's so white, actually. Now, could you drink this? Yes, we drink it all the time. I would have thought it would have been high in fat, that it would have been very nutritious. It's very nutritious. It's high in protein, actually, and low in fat, low in sugar, has lots of vitamin C. Everything the baby needs in the desert, where there's not much good food. Does it taste good? Does it taste like milk? Or does it taste like camel milk, whatever that means? A little bit like camel milk, but it's a lot like cow's milk. If you drink it after a week, you don't tell the difference anymore. But now, you all aren't going to use this. You all are not doing this for the milk to drink. You've got a whole little operation going here. Well, right now, we're using it to make camel milk soap, and it's just simply a matter of economics. We have to comply with all of the cattle dairy regulations, and we can do that, but it's very, very expensive. So we wanted to come up with a product that the public could enjoy that didn't involve us having to upgrade to that equipment, so we make camel milk soap. But Gil and I drink milk. Camel milk soap. Milk-based soaps are awesome. They're very luxurious. They're all natural. They're just oils and milk. Where do you sell this? Everywhere. We sell it on the Internet, and our soap goes to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. In fact, they have more milking camels there. Wait a minute. We're sending camel milk soap to the Middle East? To the Middle East. They have the camels there. Something's backwards here. They'd never thought of it. Wow. Camel milk soap from California is selling in the streets above Dubai. They're so majestic, and they're also kind of funny, aren't they? They are. They're wonderful. You should see them when they're running. Their lips are flapping, and they look very silly. But they're also very calm and very secure animals as well. She's a great girl, and she's about 11 months pregnant. In a couple of weeks, she's going to have her baby. And this camel over here is actually in charge of the herd. If coyotes come in here or other animals, she'll go after them. Really? Yeah. She'll walk around if there's a baby born. How did she get to be in charge of the herd? It's her character. She kind of took over. She took over from Matilda. That camel over there, back there, used to be in charge of the herd. And now she's kind of retired, and Jamila has decided to start doing it. Wow. So they have a really interesting infrastructure. Wow. This is just—I never knew there was so much to know about camels. There is. They're really, I mean—and they're California animals, too. They really are. They were here. Well, a long, long time ago, an animal that doesn't look all that different from these guys, a very, very ancient relative, was roaming these fields. Yeah. So it's kind of nice to bring them back. Yeah. They're back. They are in a big way. Really big. And they're not shy about it. She's stepping on me, and it doesn't even hurt because she has that soft pad on her. Oh, look. Here's the feet. And she can step on me, and it just won't make a difference. They've got two big toes. It's kind of hard to move. Oh, she's on your foot. There we go. Good girl. They've got two toes. You can see the bones coming out. Here's the beak, and here's the bones, and then a big pad right there, a very soft pad, or gelatinous, and that's what they walk on. How did camels get such a bad name? Because these camels are great. They are great. Well, you know, it really is true that when you have a highly intelligent animal and you treat it roughly, it's going to be not aggressive. They would be on the defensive. But if you have an intelligent animal and you treat them kindly, they are kind in return. Well, obviously, you have treated your camels kindly because look at this. This is amazing. These are like big, spoiled, rotten pets. Well, a little bit. Wow, but they grow on you. They really grow on you. Thanks. They do. They're very intelligent. Each one has its own personality. They have their own voice. Gil can tell everybody from halfway across the pasture. He knows them all, and they are in love with them. Oh, wow. I never thought I would have so much fun with camels. But we have had a wonderful day. We've milked camels. I'm going to bathe with camel milk soap tonight. You bet. We're going to put the website and telephone numbers, so people who want to get the soap. Oh, sure. We're even going to be available for, we're going to be opening up for tours because we want everyone to get to do what you're getting to do right now. This is so much fun. It is fun. We love it. Oh, my gosh. Well, that's been our day at the Oasis Camel Dairy. And I'll tell you what, I don't know when I've had so much fun. You've got a lot of lips on you right now. Boy, I do. Look at this. I'll never say anything bad about camels again. You all have won me over. Our work here is done. We have had an absolutely wonderful day here on the farm. And there they are. Look at those faces. Now that's the real thing right there. Look over here. Aren't they awesome? There's a camel kiss. Oh, he just breathed in my ear. Oh, boy. Because you know you like it. Oh, boy. You haven't lived until you've had a camel blow in your ear. I think I'm in love. I think she's in love. Come here. Little baby, come here. Come on. Good boy. Oh, my goodness. He is so cute when he runs. I know. We love him. Come on. Let's go. Come on. Let's run. Come on. Let's run back over here. Come on. Visiting with Hewell Hauser is made possible through a generous grant from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation. Camel alert. There's a big camel dairy weekend coming up July the 9th and 10th, a weekend that will include camel rides for the kids, a tour of the camel dairy, and most importantly, a camel milking contest. See if you can picture that in your mind. For information, call 760-787-0983 or go online to CamelDairy.com. You know, it doesn't get any better than a whole bunch of happy California camels. And maybe, just maybe, you'll get lucky and get a sloppy but wonderful camel kiss. It's all part of the Camel Dairy Weekend.