Summary: An approach to approximate ordinary fractional differential equations by integer-order differential equations is proposed. It is assumed that the order of fractional differentiation is close to an integer. Perturbation expansions for the Riemann-Liouville and Caputo fractional derivatives are derived in terms of a suitable small parameter extracted from the order of fractional differentiation. The first-order term of these expansions is represented by a series depending on integer-order derivatives of all integer orders. The expansions obtained permit one to approximate ordinary fractional differential equations, involving such types of fractional derivatives, by integer-order differential equations with a small parameter. It is proved that, for fractional differential equations belonging to a certain class, corresponding approximate equations contain only a finite number of integer-order derivatives. Approximate solutions to such equations can be obtained using well-known perturbation techniques. The proposed approach is illustrated by several examples.