Ride 'em, Yakboy!?
By Ardis Eckel

The woolly, horse-tailed cattle from the Himalayas find a home in Idaho

Down in the canyon, a man calls commands to the dogs. A woman on horseback breaks from the trees to round up a straggler. Brush snaps. A border collie shoots up out of the ravine. The first of the herd follow. Then, as a' unit, the animals spill onto the road and head toward familiar pasture.
It's just another morning at the Wykle ranch. Just another yak drive. No, the Wyk1es don't live high in the Tibetan Himalayas, where yaks were domesticated several thousand years ago. Phil and Beth Wykle live on Harris Ridge in Idaho County, Idaho.

Phil just wanted to diversify his ranching operation.

"Yaks make good sense," he says, then rattles off his motto: "Ride,pack and pull; meat, milk and wool."

Phil became interested in yaks in the fall of 1996, when he picked up promotional materials at a products show.

Intrigued, he returned home and began delving into the practicality of raising the buffalo-humped, horsetailed, cow-horned, goat-nimble creatures that flaunt long fringed skirts of hair.

First, he learned there are as few as 300 wild yaks left in the high Asian mountains, but as many as 12 million domesticated yaks in the world. Of those, most still live in Asia, with fewer than 1,000 in the United States and Canada.

Corresponding with other North American yak ranchers, Phil learned yaks should thrive on his ranch because they readily adjust to climate changes.

"They inhabit steppes of 15,000 feet, yet have been successfully raised at very low elevations," he says. "Their respiratory rate increases with heat and low altitudes, then decreases at higher , cooler climates to help them adjust."

Domestic yaks-which belong to the bovine family, as do European cattle-are slightly smaller than ordinary cattle, with yak cows weighing up to 800 pounds, and bulls to 1,100. The cows breed at 18 to 24 months, have an 81/2-month gestation period, calve easily and normally produce a single calf. Mating takes place in the fall; calves are born the following summer. Yaks reach full size in six to eight years, and live as long as 25 years.

In the United States, yaks are classified as cattle and don't require special permits or licenses.

"They don't require special fencing, either," Phil says. "And I use a chute to work them, just like I do our cattle. That's what sold me-that I wouldn't have to change my present operation to try them."

Try them he did. By spring of 1997, Phil had rounded up 22 yaks-merging three distinct gene pools-from Canada, Montana and Oregon.

"Yaks are interesting critters," Phil says. "They pick up on things, pay more attention than cattle do. They were stand-offish at first. But now--they-, follow me around like goats."

Yaks are quieter than cattle, too. "They don't bellow or low," Phil says. "They grunt." The yaks seem at home at the Wyk1e ranch-wary of strangers, but more interested in methodically mowing field grass.

"They eat less than ordinary cattle do," Phil says. "Otherwise, they eat what cattle do."

They are weather resistant, too.

"When it storms, my cattle hole up in the brush, but not the yaks," Phil says. "They lay down in the open, tuck their feet underneath them and ignore the rain that runs right off their skirts."

All those discoveries aside, Phil diqn't acquire yaks just to see how they would like it on his ranch. He bought the animals to turn a profit by breeding and selling them to alterrnative livestock ranchers.

And why ,would they want yaks?

"Because of their versatility," Phil says. "They can be ridden like horses, packed like mules and used to pull plows or cart like oxen."

They are also a source of milk products and low fat, low-cholesterol meat. Yak milk-which is rich in butter fat is used for drinking, making butter, yogurt and cheeses.

"The meat is beef-like, but more delicate," Phil say. "Maybe a little like buffalo." Also like buffalo, yaks can be cross-bred with ordina cattle for a lower-fat, more beef-like meat.

Then there's Phil's favorite, the wool. Yaks shed once a year, the downy wool forming shaggy mats along their sides. To harvest the wool, Phil runs a yak into his cattle chute, then carefully curry-combs the wool from the coarse interwoven hairs. The wool is washed, carded and worked into yarn.

"It's very warm, and soft as cashmere," Phil says. "In Tibet, the monks blend its short fibers with longer silk fibers for easier spinning."

Ready-to-spin yak wool sells for $4 an ounce.

"That's why I purposely chose extra-woolly animals," Phil says. "I get two to three pounds of wool from each yak. For the homesteader who has a few acres and wants a couple yaks for packing or for meat, the wool will pay for their hay."

Since Phil has become a yak man, he has seen calves born and collected gunny-sacks of wool. He has spent hours among his herd, listening to their low grunts, chuckling at their antics. He's even tolerated teasing about having "gone to the yaks." And he encourages visitors to come see the funny-looking critters that have made themselves at home on Harris Ridge.