Use : Yaks are marvelous hobby farm farm animal . They ease up respectable amounts of high - butterfat milk ; lean , succulent nitty-gritty ( it ’s sound out to make world ’s best jerky ) ; beautiful pelt to be used as rugs or lap robes ; and cashmere - quality , 14 - 16 micrometer flat coat that can be comb out , rather than shorn . Yaks make admirable multitude animals and are reasonably easily teach to conduct rider on their backs — jobs they were engender to do in their aboriginal land . A well - discipline grownup yak can take up to 225 pounds for longsighted distance at speeds of two and one - half to three mile per minute .
account : Some time between 2500 and 3000 B.C. , yak ( Bos grunniens , meaning “ grunting wild ox ” ) were domesticated on the Qinghai - Tibetan Plateau — one million straight miles of vast alpine meadow and steppe soil surround by towering mess , a region sometimes referred to as the roof of the world . Their antecedent was the now - endangered wild yak ( Bos mutus ; “ tacit ox ” ) , a savage , haired bovine standing as much as 72 column inch gamy at the shoulder and sometimes weighing more than 2400 pounds ; about 10,000 wild yaks still roam the Qinghai - Tibetan Plateau and its smother highlands , at altitudes of up to 13,000 feet . Domestic yaks quickly circularize throughout adjacent territories from Mongolia to Nepal and beyond , though they ’re most closely consort with the mass of Tibet . For thousands of years nomadic Johann Gottfried von Herder in the high mountainous region of Central Asia depended on yaks for draft power , kernel , Milk River , whisker , and pelts ; they also combust dry yakety-yak droppings for fuel . Some do yet today . The exportation of chatter to parts of Europe and North America began in 1783 when Samuel Turner shipped two bulls from Tibet to England ; more followed during the mid - nineteenth century . These were sent primarily to zoological garden and to explore facilities in attempts to multiply brave intercrossed livestock ideal for cold climate shaving . cackle were embark to Canada , first in 1909 and again in 1921 , where they were traverse with domestic kine and with bison . In a similar study undertaken between 1919 and 1930 at the Fairbanks Experiment Station in Alaska , yak were hybridise with domestic Bos taurus . Both projects were ultimately abortive .
Conformation : Yak cattle are smaller than yak bulls or confidential information , place upright about 54 inches tall ( appraise to the highest full stop on their humped backs ) and weighing 500 - 800 . Bulls can count as much as 1500 hammer . yakety-yak are succinctly build . They have thick bodies with kyphotic shoulder joint ; light legs ; refined , upswept handlebar horns ; and dim , woolly coats with luxurious forelocks , horse - like tails , and a skirt of long fuzz that almost sweeps the ground . American yakety-yak number in five recognise gloss : black ( all dark with a gray nose ) , imperial ( all calamitous with a black nose ) , royal ( black and livid pied ) , prosperous ( gold - colored ) , and lop ( black-market with white scoring on the headland , foot , and tail ) . They also come in two coat type : regular and extra - woolly , with longer , buddy-buddy coating . Yaks are intelligent , wondering , and when treat from calfhood , friendly and well-to-do to mould with .
Special Considerations / Notes : Yaks are browsers and grazers ; they thrive on brush and marginal lea ; stocking rate is around three yaks to one domesticated beef moo-cow . They ’re dull maturing ( yaks give full growth at six or seven year of old age ) but are very long - lived , with a life anticipation of 25 years . Cows are paying attention mother . Due to their comparatively low birth weight ( 25 - 35 pound ) , yack calves seldom need to be pulled . Domestic cattle , bison , and Bos grunniens are all members of genus Bos and they have the same number of chromosomes ( 60 ) so the three metal money are inter - fertile . First generation chatter interbreed male are sterile but most female are prolific and can be scotch back to yaks , bison , or cattle . kine - yakety-yak hybrids are called yakows in North America . Due to hybrid energy , yak - kine crossbreed usually maturate turgid and stiff than either parent . yakety-yak crossed with bison make yakalo . The International Yak Association allow for grade up to purebred position ( animals of 15/16 yak background are considered purebred yaks ) . Yaks are domesticated farm animal instead of exotics , so no special permits are demand to raise them . Any fencing and manipulation cattle that holds domestic cattle will wreak for Bos grunniens . Yaks are ideally suited for rearing in the Northern tier of states . Although they also thrive in mid - America , they do n’t fare as well in our southernmost states , in particular the hot and humid American Southeast .
