American Yak

Yaks come from Tibet, where they are milked, packed, shorn and eaten by the people of the high plateau. The animals that reached North America in the late 1800s and early 1900s went first to zoos, then into crossbreeding trials aimed at beef production in the cold of Canada and the northern United States.

The trials ended; the animals stayed. Purebred descendants of those imports are now spread across many US states and Canadian provinces, and The Livestock Conservancy treats them as a distinct genetic resource worth conserving on its own terms, not as a spillover of the Tibetan herds.

The Conservancy puts adult weight at 600 to 1,500 lb. Figures for the domestic yak generally run bulls at 772 to 1,290 lb and cows at 496 to 562 lb, with bulls standing 44 to 54 inches at the withers and cows 41 to 46. A yak is smaller than it looks; the coat does the looking.

The coat is the equipment: long outer hair hanging below the belly over a dense, woolly undercoat, and the undercoat is the fiber the trade pays for. Both sexes carry horns, a bull's sweeping out and back at 19 to 39 inches, a cow's shorter and more upright.

Under the hair the yak is built for altitude: larger lungs and heart than comparable cattle, blood that carries more oxygen, a layer of insulating fat, and almost no functional sweat glands.

Docile is the Conservancy's word, and it rates the breed for beginner to intermediate handlers. They are trainable enough to pack, which is not something you can say of most beef animals.

They are still horned stock. Gates, chutes and feeders need to allow for that, and so does anyone working them.

One animal returns several things: lean, nutrient-dense beef, rich milk that cheesemakers want, and a dense undercoat sold as high-end fiber. Hides and horns find niche markets of their own, and a trained yak will carry a load.

They suit hard country. Yaks handle altitude and cold, need no special fencing, calve easily and tend to be long-lived, which makes them a fit for grass-based operations where stocking rates are low and conditions are rough.

Heat is the limit. An animal with almost no functional sweat glands and a coat built for the Tibetan plateau has nothing to spare for a hot summer, so the further south and lower you farm, the harder the breed has to work.

The American Yak is ranked Critical on the Conservation Priority List. Fewer than 200 purebreds are registered in the US each year, and the global population of the breed is estimated below 500.

Untracked crossbreeding is the main threat to what remains. Yak and cattle crosses are easy to make, and the male offspring are sterile; every unrecorded cross dilutes a small gene pool without adding anything back.

Ask for papers. The Livestock Conservancy lists two organizations for the breed, the North American Yak Association and the World Heritage Yak Conservancy; ask which book an animal is recorded in, and with a population this small, treat the pedigree as most of what you are buying.

Know what a cross is worth to you. A yak and cattle hybrid can be a useful animal, but the males are sterile and the offspring have no place in a purebred program. If the seller cannot document pure breeding, price the animal as a hybrid.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.