Entrepreneur takes unusual tack

Mich. man raises camels for their milk

Joe Garverick is working to establish a camel milk business at his 36-acre farm in Lambertville. Camel milk sells for $11 a pint and he says it is more nutritious than cow’s milk.

THE BLADE/KATIE RAUSCH
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Joe Garverick is working to establish a camel milk business at his 36-acre farm in Lambertville. Camel milk sells for $11 a pint and he says it is more nutritious than cow’s milk.

LAMBERTVILLE — Joe Garv­er­ick looks to the fu­ture, and he be­lieves the next big thing, nu­tri­tion­ally speak­ing, could be milk from the camel.

The Lam­bert­ville res­i­dent keeps 15 of the en­gag­ing beasts at his 36-acre home on Con­sear Road and said he will ac­quire more as part of his plan to pro­duce and sell their milk.

Ac­cord­ing to him, the nu­tri­tional qual­i­ties of camel milk far sur­pass any­thing that comes from a cow, and there is a large, un­filled mar­ket for the prod­uct in this coun­try, even at the cur­rent price of $11 a pint.

Raw camel milk, for one thing, has a 0.5 per­cent fat con­tent, he said. Whole cow milk has many times that and con­tains only about a third of the Vi­ta­min C found in camel milk.

Joe Garverick drinks camel milk at his home. He says the milk is high in Vitamin C.

“Camel milk is the only milk that can sus­tain life. You could live on it on a des­ert is­land. It has ev­ery­thing we need to sur­vive,” Mr. Garv­er­ick said. “Other parts of the world re­al­ize this. It con­tains in­su­lin. In the Mid­dle East, camel milk is used for TB, AIDS, and di­a­be­tes.”

Six of Mr. Garv­er­ick’s cam­els are preg­nant. With new­borns and cam­els he plans to buy, Mr. Garv­er­ick will ex­pand his herd to 30 next year. He’ll also in­vest in equip­ment to milk cam­els and per­form that task him­self in­stead of send­ing his cam­els to Cad­il­lac, Mich., to be milked by an Amish farmer. He’ll then sell the milk over the In­ter­net.

A camel can pro­duce about two gal­lons of milk a day, com­pared with 10 gal­lons for a dairy cow, he said, and the mother and calf can­not be sep­a­rated for the mother to be milked.

For Mr. Garv­er­ick, keep­ing cam­els has an­other, non­finan­cial ben­e­fit: he sim­ply en­joys them.

Camels have a rep­u­ta­tion for be­ing ir­ri­ta­ble, but his are friendly, and in­quis­i­tive, ap­proach­ing vis­i­tors to their pad­dock as if in greet­ing. They seem to en­joy hav­ing their vel­vety muz­zles rubbed. On Mr. Garv­er­ick’s com­mand, one even set­tles to its knees, a scene rem­i­nis­cent of Law­rence of Arabia.

The cam­els are only part of Mr. Garv­er­ick’s me­nag­erie of ap­prox­i­mately 150 an­i­mals that in­cludes don­keys, ze­bras, emus, chick­ens, wal­la­bies, and goats. His home, at 2740 Con­sear, is used a lot as a site for fund-rais­ers, in­clud­ing one for the Bed­ford Ath­letic Boost­ers slated for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 8.

Bed­ford Se­nior High School foot­ball play­ers and cheer­lead­ers will be on hand dur­ing the fund-raiser. Ad­mis­sion will be $5 and the pro­ceeds will ben­e­fit high school ath­let­ics.