Raising Yaks, What you need to Know.

Raising Yaks: A Guide for Beginners

Hello there. In this article, we will focus on raising yaks in USA. Although some prefer cattle over yaks, here we will try to let you know why yaks are also an option you might consider.

In the USA, you can find yaks in 5 different colors: Black, Imperial, Trim Yak, Royal Yak and Golden Yak. From all of those, the Golden yaks are the rarest ones – they are only about 50 or so in the USA.
Regardless what kind of yaks you are considering to raise, let’s see the benefits from it.

Why Yaks?

Well, most importantly – they are cheap to keep. These animals eat less than a cattle and the requite less handling that cattle. But also, they live longer than cattle do.

Yaks are the type of animals that don’t need hormones, steroids, or antibiotic feed supplements for excellent health
and growth. All they need is grass. They are quiet animals and they don’t need any special fencing.

Talking about stuff you don’t need – you don’t need any special permit for raising yaks. Yaks are strong animals with ability to survive on very harsh environment and have a big reproducing rate.

The Yak meat is in a limited supply, so it has a higher price that the regular beef. This is based on many factors, one of them being that yaks don’t get parasites or diseases. Yak meat is very low on cholesterol and fat, even lower than salmon and some other fish. Also, is much higher in protein than the rest of the meats.

However, if you don’t want to raise them for slaughtering, they are other reasons as well:

-Yak milk: Quality milk that is used for making butter and cheese. The raw Yak milk is often drank by kids and old people.
– Rich fiber: Often compared with cashmere or camel for its quality and strength. Also, it’s in high demands and you can sell it for $4-5 per once (the rough one).
Yaks can be used in crossbreeding with any other cattle breed. What you will get would be a strong cattle that is naturally cold-resist.

Vaccines and diseases

Although they don’t get sick very often (it’s actually very rare for this to happen), theoretically, they can get any decease that a cattle can. For this reason, they are treated same as cattle.
Yaks can start receive vaccine after 3-4 months of age. Some of the vaccines that are standard are:

– IBR
– BVD
– PI3
– Lepto 5

– BRSV (syncytial virus),

But you might also need:

– Histophilus (Haemophilus)
– Campylobacter (Vibrio)
– E. Coli,
– Pink eye
– Staph.
-Anthrax

-Mannheimia (Pasteurella)

For more detailed list of the deceases they might get, visit this page.

It’s very important to mention that whatever medicine of vaccine you are using for Yaks should have a label stating that the medicine is for yaks/cattle. You will find some vaccines without this label and that can cause problems.
All in all, it’s about 7-8 vaccines (sometimes 11)
This is essential for providing good health for the animal, the herd and they’re breeding status.

Many people are starting to raise Yaks in USA. We hope that this article helped you and introduced you to a little bit more information, as to what to dealing with this animal, their nutrition and the vaccines they need.