Yaks are pleasing to view and own. Their great handlebar horns, water
buffalo like shoulders, horse-like tail, and a long hairy skirt
combined with their particular docile behavior make for an exotic
appearance you can also enjoy observing for hours.
Yak infants are agile, athletic, playful, and leap and run like excited
horses with their tails held high over their backs. Yaks are certainly
not loud livestock. They communicate in quiet grunts, snorts and head
shakes. Yaks are extremely intelligent, interested, independent,
serene, mellow, and quiet animals that make them a pleasure to raise.
Thus of their unique heritage of growing in high mountainous areas with
great temperature extremes they are extremely hardy and perfect for
places that are traditionally considered inhospitable to animals. They
love the cold, dry conditions and require no special shelter or diets.
Yak calves, cattle and steers easily become halter trained, and can
make good pets or 4H task livestock. They are an outstanding choice for
packing and trekking purposes. An adult yak can pack incredible weight
through rough tremendous mountain terrain more surefooted than horses
or mules. Certainly not needing shoes, they are trail friendly and
require little more than browsing along the way. They also can be
confined with horses and mixed for a special pack string.
Yaks are normally very hardy and disease resistant. Their great wooly
coat includes an outer guard hair and a fine inner hair called down.
The down provides insulation against the cold winter time. Each spring
as the weather warms, the yak start naturally shedding their downy
undercoat. Yak farmers help this along by combing out their yaks and
collecting the down. It is then washed and prepared the same as the
fiber got from sheep and other fiber livestock.
An adult yak produces around one pound of down per year. Yak fiber is
quiet soft and luxurious. It is near 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 this livestock is around
15-18. It has a short staple 1/2? - 2? with an un-usual crimp. It is
great for sewn and knitted garments, also; yak down is a great fiber
when felt.
Most uniquely is the taste and benefit of yak meat which is simply
possibly the healthiest and good tasting meat on the meat market. Yak
meat takes up 96% lean red meat plus rates very low in the "bad"
Palmitic acid and saturated fats linked with cardiovascular disease and
high cholesterol.
It is also quite high in protein and iron, and the "good" oleic acids
and poly-unsaturated fats. It has a scrumptious and delicate beef
flavor which is never gamey or greasy and is even lower in fat than
salmon. Tests have proven that 9 out of ten people will prefer yak meat
than that of beef, bison or elk.