Yak in the saddle
Herds flourish in Mission Valley
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Looking like a cross between a buffalo and a beef cow with long wooly skirts and a silky, horse-like tail, the yak heifers wait for their daily food. Owner Larry Richards trundles bales of hay on a wheelbarrow out to the far corner of the pasture. It’s a morning ritual that all livestock owners are familiar with during the winter: feeding.
“They are just such a unique, beautiful animal,” Richards said of the yaks.
After feeding the heifers, Richards drives his pickup to the cow and calf pasture. The animals are quiet, with only the occasional buffalo-like grunt. They’re skittish with strangers around, according to Richards, but they calm down after the first bales of hay are spread. Richards has about 55 yaks in conjunction with Bill Martin of Far West Farms.
Many of the calves, as big as their mothers, are ready to be weaned. There are also several late calves, wooly as little bear cubs.
“The babies are so darn cute,” Richards smiled. He added that even cattle ranchers have commented on the cute calves.
Not only are they cute, but they have personality. In the spring after most of the calves are born, Richards said they form a gang and run in the irrigation ditch. The older calves go over to a newborn and try to recruit him or her. The mother cow chases the troublemakers off, but they’re persistent and keep up the visits until finally the cow relents and allows the new calf to join the gang.
Cuteness isn’t reason enough to raise yaks, although some people do buy them as a novelty. That’s one of the three purposes for yaks in the United States. The other two are meat and wool.
Yak meat is low in fat and cholesterol.
“It’s a dark red meat, sort of like elk or bison,” Richards explained. “The burger is outstanding and only 3 percent fat.”
The product hits the niche market for folks who want lean meat.
Then there is the yak’s wooly coat, which sometimes hangs to the ground. One of Richards’ heifers has such a furry face, he trims her bangs so she can see. Richards calls the especially wooly yaks otherworldly, like something Steven Spielberg would create.
Although the yaks are growing their winter coats now, Richards sometimes combs them in the spring and sells some wool to hand spinners in Missoula. A yak’s neck hair is the finest, and Richards collects it with a comb or a dog grooming brush, although he said it’s quite a job.
Though all the animals are Tibetan yaks, the black and white ones are called royals; black yaks with a grey muzzle are known as black yaks; and black yaks with no white and a black muzzle are imperials. A black trim yak is a cross between a black and a royal, a black and black trim or two black trims; it would have just a dash of white, either a marking on its face or some white on its tail or socks on its legs.
Yaks are easy to keep in fences, unlike bison that require special fencing. Yaks are hardy and used to the cold, too, since they’re originally from Tibet where they grazed on the valley floors at 12,000 to 14,000 feet. No barns are necessary either.
And yaks are not as large as bison.
“An 850 pound cow is a big cow,” Richards explained. “The bulls can weigh 1,700 pounds or so.”
Richards moved to the area in 1988. He was raising llamas at the time, but he spotted a yak in Nebraska and soon was raising the beasts. He imported 100 yaks from game farms in Canada between 1990 and 1995 to form the genetic blueprint for his Living Diamonds Tibetan Yak Ranch.
Some of Richards’ yaks were even movie stars. He boarded a plane in August of 1997 and accompanied some of his yaks to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the filming of “Seven Years in Tibet.” For three years in a row, Richards’ yaks have taken the grand and reserve champion female at the National Western Stock Show in Denver.
The yak show in Denver is a pen show. The yaks are shown in their winter coats. Richards said they try to keep the yaks as clean as possible for the judge’s visit to their pen. The animals are penned with other yaks from their home place.
There is also a halter show, but Richards is less interested in showing his yaks at halter and more interested in genetics.
One of his foundation sires was Senior Diamond, and Richards bred the bull to a $10,000 cow named Royal Gold. She had a calf named Junior Diamond, and from them came the Berry line of yaks — Blackberry, Halleberry, Appleberry, etc.
On the www.iyak.org website, Richards states, “We have imported, identified or developed three major and, in my opinion, the most significant three lines in North American yak breeding; those being the Diamond, Prince Allante and Dreadlock lines.”
Blackberry was Grand Champion Yak (male and female) at the National Western Stock Show in 2009. Her first son was Dr. Lock out of Dreadlock. Now 6 years old, Dr. Lock is the best producing bull Richards has ever owned.
A tall bull, Dr. Lock is also long and thick. This year Richards bred Dr. Lock to 14 daughters of Prince Allante.
“It’s a good cross for size and wool,” he noted.
Although he’s sold about 45 breeding animals this year, Richards said, “My problem is wanting to keep every one.”
