Also see some research
Also see Law
Camels are one of the easier animals to raise in Egypt, only requiring straw - however, they do require large amounts of it.
Camels must be housed in a dromedary pen. Dromedary pens are placed outside and require a small construction site plus 200 boards and 400 bricks to build. Dromedary pens must be placed on a sandy area, but need not fit entirely within the sand. As long as you can stand on a single square and harvest sand, it is suitable for camel raising.
Each midnight, one wild camel is spawned in each of an unspecified number of regions. It will go to the pen with an open door with the most Straw in its region, eat all the straw, and remain there.
Two theories on determining the gender of the released camel from the braintrust on E!: either it's completely random whether a male or a female camel is released, or else it changes every Egypt day, so that if you got a male camel the previous night, the next camel to be released will be female. After weeks of trying to get a male camel without success, I tested the second theory and finally got my male camel today, but obviously this is not statistically significant. —AatonPulonich
Wanted to confirm the second theory. I filled my pen with straw one night and got a male, and the second night I filled my pen with the same amount of straw, and got my female. -Aggregate
I just setup my pen and filled it with straw two days in a row. First night I got my male camel, so second night I was expecting to get a female. I got another male....seems maybe it is random? - rubenette
UPDATE: 3rd egypt night in a row, 3rd male. It definitely does not alternate between female and male nightly. In T2 there was some talk of the sex of camel depending on whether the straw you put in was odd or even in number. (just when you put it in, obviously you can't control how much the current camel eats) I don't remember how much I put in the first night, but nights two and three both times I have put in 888 straw. (444 X 2, just what I could carry at the time) I'm going to put in an odd number and see what happens tonight... - rubenette
UPDATE2: jackpot....used 795 straw and caught a female tonight. So possibly odd straw gets females and even straw gets males. - rubenette
When examining a pen for new camels, you may see a message indicating that a camel nibbled on the straw and then left. This indicates that the pen, while not the one with the most straw in the area, is close to being the top.
Camels eat straw. They eat 10 per camel every two egypt hours (40 RL minutes or about 330 per RL day). Note that offline grass production is about 960 per RL day, so a solo player may struggle to keep even 2 camels.
Camels breed quickly, so once you have a breeding pair of camels, there is little reason to continue to attempt to attract wild ones. Close the door to the pen at this point so that a wild camel can't appear and eat your entire straw supply.
Camels don't necessarily breed quickly it seems, mine (1 female, 1 male) took about one RL-week. Perhaps more data should be collected on breeding times with different numbers of females? -Gnaeus
Camels Breed quicker the more Females there are the optimal breeding with low straw maintaince is 1 Male 3 Females but the best is 1 Male 4 Females but requires alot of straw as the breed very quickly at 1:4 (This Data is from T1 T2 and T3 as Breeding has not changed since T1) - Ledeanna
I have a theory on Camel breeding. My camels seemed to stop breeding after i gave them a generous serving of honey (have 1 male & 1 female currently). I gave the female about 8-10 honey, and she has since stopped breeding, however she is still producing camel milk about 1 per hour. I believe that giving the honey and hence receiving the milks, stops the camels from breeding for a small amount of time. Any thoughts on this theory? A friend of mine also confimed this belief as well, since she has experienced it also. In addition this has happened to me before with other camels I was tending. - Narvin
Camels stud; a pen containing at least one male and female camel will produce up to one new camel for each female per breeding cycle. (For this reason, there is little reason to keep more than one male camel in a pen.)
For a period of time after a female camel has given birth, you may feed her honey in order to induce the production of camel milk.
Camels will not die of starvation if left unfed. (Starved camels for 2 weeks with zero deaths) ~Aoreias
The same procedure can be carried out reversing the sexes to produce Camel Pheromone (Male), although this takes more effort since in a pen with few females, fewer camels are born.
Camels do not appear to produce pheromone if their food runs low, so you will need around 3300 straw per RL day. (Qwu: my camels produce pheromones without straw too) My camels produce pheromones without straw, just no dung. - SpoonerandForker
Camel Pheromones can be macerated in a Chem Lab to provide High Astringent and Low Toxic Essences.
The max number of camels in a pen is 10. To get 10 camels of 1 sex you need to breed 9 (ex: 9M 1F). Then slaughter the remain odd sexed one (ex the 1 F)and open the door and attract a wild camel. Of course the wild one may not be the sex you need and will eat all the straw in the pen. So this part is a round-robin until you get the right camel.