The Yaks Are Here!!!

Our girls have arrived, whoo, hoo!! Let me introduce you, Gracie is on your left and Jasmine is on your right.

At first I panicked. How was I going to tell the girls apart. No white marking, nothing. Then I saw their names on their ear tags and I breathed a big sigh of relief. By the way, this is Gracie. I can't see her ear tag in this photo but I have now got it figured out who is who without them. Beyond two brown hairy bodies I can see that their faces and bodies are nothing alike. 

No, really, there not. Look carefully. This is Gracie. One way you can tell is that her hair on her forehead isn't very full in comparison to Jasmines. Do yaks have foreheads? See, I know nothing --yet. 

Look here at Jasmine. Hint, hint, look at the name on her ear tag. But beyond that blatant clue, look how wide her head is and how full her hair is acrossed it. Gracie's hair is scant across her head and comes to a V. Give Jasmine another year and we may have to trim that hair so she can see.

Jasmine here has big wide, long chaps and her hair is much fuller than Gracie's. By next year her hair will be really long.  Jasmine is what they call a silky because of the way her hair is smooth and well, silky. It doesn't look soft in this picture but it is comparable to cashmere. It doesn't get much nicer than that.

She would be a good candidate to breed to an extreme wooly to come up with more fiber. She is one nice looking yak between the size of her bone structure, which is large, and her full hair. Jasmine will be one big cow when she grows up.  Her dad weighs 1780 lbs.,  a really big boy and her mother was a big cow also.

Now look at this side shot and ....

...then look at this one.  Yup, you guessed it, the first one is Jasmine and this one is Gracie. Didn't guess it. Well, note the smooth silky hair on Jasmine, the first side shot, and the crimp in Gracie's hair here in the second.

Gracie is the more friendly one and is very jealous of any attention given to Jasmine. They aren't comfortable around us yet and tip their horns in a, I can defend myself so watch out, kind of way. But then again, it has been less than twenty-four hours since we picked them up. I was thrilled this morning though when Gracie grunted at me. My mare was whinnying, the goats were maa...ing and Gracie grunted. It was so... cool. Yes, yaks don't moo, though they are a bovine, they grunt instead. 

I wonder which type of hair is more desirable to spin? Hm....? I really need that yak tour I've been wanting to take. I've questions and questions to ask the ranchers who raise yaks for meat, for fiber, and yes, we found one family that is working on a yak cheese line.

But right now I want to thank Larry and Christy from Spring Brook Ranch who were kind enough when they met us last night with the yaks in Gillette to give us a little yak meat to try and some fiber for me to spin. Since it is Mother's Day, we are having yak ribeye steaks tonight. Yum, yum! We've go to get the grill hot, hot for that's how you cook them. 

To all you Mother's out there, Happy Mother's Day.