How To Start Raising Yaks

How To Start Raising Yaks

What Is The Purpose Of A Yak?

Yaks are pleasing to view and own. Their great handlebar horns, buffalo like shoulders, horse-like tail, and a long hairy skirt combined with their unique docile behavior make for an exotic appearance you can enjoy watching for hours. Yak babies are agile, athletic, playful, and leap and run like excited horses with their tails held high over their backs. Yaks are not loud animals. They communicate in quiet grunts, snorts and head shakes. Yaks are extremely intelligent, curious, independent, serene, mellow, and quiet animals that make them a pleasure to raise.

Because of their unique heritage of thriving in high mountainous regions with great temperature extremes they are extremely hardy and well suited for environments that are considered traditionally considered inhospitable to livestock. They love the cold, dry conditions and require no special shelter or diets. Yak calves, cows and steers easily become halter trained, and can make great pets or 4H project animals. They are an excellent choice for packing and trekking purposes. An adult animal can pack tremendous weight through rough mountainous terrain more surefooted than horses or mules. Not needing shoes, they are trail friendly and require little more than browsing along the way. They also can be confined with horses and combined for a unique pack string.

Also Read: The Different Types Yaks Pens Equipment

Yaks are naturally very hardy and disease resistant. Their great wooly coat consists of an outer guard hair and a fine inner hair called down. The down provides insulation against the cold winter months. Each spring as the weather warms, the yak start naturally shedding their downy undercoat. Yak owners help this along by combing out their yaks and collecting the down. It is then washed and processed the same as the fiber from sheep and other fiber animals. An adult yak produces approximately one pound of down per year. Yak fiber is soft and luxurious. It is close to Qiviut (musk ox down) and compares in softness and warmth to Cashmere. Yak fiber is not slippery and can be easily spun. The micron count of yak is 15-18. It has a short staple 1 1/2? – 2? with an irregular crimp. It is wonderful for woven and knitted garments, additionally; yak down is a great fiber to felt.

Most uniquely is the taste and benefit of yak meat which is quite possibly the healthiest and best tasting meat on the market. Yak meat averages 96% lean red meat and rates extremely low in the “bad” Palmitic acid and saturated fats associated with heart disease and high cholesterol. It is also very high in protein and iron, and the “good” oleic acids and poly-unsaturated fats. It has a delicious and delicate beef flavor which is never gamey or greasy and is even lower in fat that salmon. Testing has proven that nine out of ten persons will prefer yak meat over beef, bison or elk.

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Yak make an excellent livestock choice for the hobby farmer or the serious rancher. The stocking rate of yak is 3 to 4 times that of cattle, which means you can raise 3 to 4 times as many yak per acre as you could beef cattle. Their initial pound of gain versus pound of feed far exceeds that of cattle. Studies have shown that yak use less than as little as six pounds of grass forage, to convert to a pound of gain. In the wintertime yak slow down their metabolism to conserve energy, while beef cattle need to eat more to produce enough energy to contend with the cold. Additional benefits include their compatibility with most agricultural operations; they require no special fencing beyond standard cattle fence and qualify for certain tax advantages. Another great attribute is their longevity. Yaks live and reproduce up to twenty-five years of age.

This great animal abounds in history, culture and tradition. One of the most unique aspects of yaks is that they are still considered a rare animal in most of the world. The wild Yak is listed as an Endangered Species and numbers less than three hundred animals world wide. The International Yak Association and the North American Yak Registry maintain the registry and preserves the pedigree of the breed. Currently, there are less than one thousand registered yak in North America and approximately 2,000 overall.

The Different Types Of Yaks Pens And Equipment

Generally, there is little equipment to assist the herdsmen in the management of yak on range. The most usual provisions are a dipping pit used for both cattle and sheep; perhaps a silo or silage trench for use mainly by sheep; a corral with a tunnel-like passage to restrain animals for vaccinations or other treatments; and there may be a simple crush to hold cows that are intended to mate to particular bulls or to inseminate artificially. Pens are also created to provide shelter. Such pens and enclosures are used only at night and usually only during the winter and spring. They are always at the campsite or close to the habitation of the herdsmen and their families. The pens can be of various types of construction with differing degrees of permanence.

Mud pen

This is a relatively permanent construction built near the habitation of the herdsmen or at the winter campsite. It is used primarily for the cow herd, including hybrid females, and it is also used for the replacement females. The area is usually 15 x 15 m with a wall 1 - 1.2 m high, but the size can be as large as 30 x 20 m. Most of the mud pens have an additional shelter area constructed at one side of the pen facing the sun and providing extra protection from the wind. This extra shelter is constructed from a layer of clay on wooden boards knitted together with wicker. Such a pen is illustrated schematically and in a photograph in Figure 8.2.

Also Read: The Benefits Raising Yaks Meat

The mud pens can stand alone, though more usually there are two or more built together and often joined by a passage with mud walls or wooden fence. A gate or gates keep the stock apart in the different pens. If several pens are connected to each other, the last pen will end in a long tunnel-like passage used for restraining the animals for vaccinations or other purposes. The passage can be roofed or open.

Faeces pen

This is a temporary structure, built and used only during the cold season. Fresh yak faeces are piled up near the campsite in a layer of about 15 - 20 cm deep every day. The first layer freezes solid overnight before the second layer is added.

Such a pen can be completed in a few days. There are two types of faeces pen: One has four walls to keep out wind and snow and provides a relatively large area used for adult yak.

The other is smaller, built on a horseshoe-shaped foundation with a diameter of about 1 m and looking, from the outside, something like an upside-down earthenware jar. It is built up gradually to its final 1 m height and is used to hold calves. The open end has its back to the prevailing wind. A wooden stake is used to tether the calf. Hay is put inside the pen to make it warmer for the calf. When the temperature starts to rise in the spring, the faeces thaws and pens made from it fall apart, to be rebuilt in the following winter.

Turf pen

To build pens with turf, herdsmen select a position on the winter pastures that faces the sun and is relatively sheltered from the wind. The height of the turf walls is at least 60 cm, though usually higher. This type of pen is used to give some shelter to pack yak and some bulls. The structure is semi-permanent but needs to be repaired each year.

Wooden compound (or corral)

Wood is in short supply on the plateau where most yak live. Therefore, wooden enclosures are often only an adjunct to a mud pen and within its perimeter. The wooden enclosure may be roofed or not. In the alpine areas, wood is more abundant and the compound may be built independently. The structure is of small wooden bars and provision is made for holding hay. During the warm season, these wooden enclosures are used to keep the calves isolated from their dams at night, while the adults graze in preparation for milking the following morning.

Other shelters

Tents made of yak hair are also used for calves in the pastoral areas. In the alpine parts, for example in Jiulong county of Sichuan, there are small shelters, called cattle shelters, found as part of the permanent buildings of the campsites. They are used by herdsmen and milkers and for processing milk and storing milk products. Such shelters can vary in area from 10 - 20 sq m and are surrounded by a stone wall that is 1.5 m. high. Boards or bark are used for the roof. These shelters are in use whenever the herd comes to the campsite.

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