Help Keep our Yaks From Being Slaughtered! Please!

We thought we had found a home for the yaks. In fact it sounded so good that we let the guy lead us on for a full week. (He seemed to be having trouble with his phone.)

So I finally got ahold of him and here's what he wanted: We give him all four of our yaks. He "takes care of them" then keeps two of them. The two he wanted were our breedable females, Yazoo and Yeti. Which would have been negotiable if he wanted to breed them.

Yeti: "Please send hay."

 He wanted to slaughter them. For meat.

Before I get into my personal feelings on this, let me say that these are beautiful yak cows at their breeding prime, and from excellent bloodlines. Turning them into meat would be a sheer waste.

On the personal level, I love all my yaks even the irascible Yonkers. The idea of selling them to be killed for their meat horrifies me.

But here's the big problem. Right now I have enough money for one, maybe two bales of hay. That'll last about 3 days if I stretch it. I've tried cutting grass (by hand), but at the rate it's going, it'll take me 2 days to cut one day's food for them.

I also barely have gas in the truck to go out and buy hay. We've sold every item we own of worth: Our auger, our propane tanks, even our water tanks (which means I now have to haul water for them in small batches, thus creating more challenges).

Please help us. The way we're going, the yaks are either going to starve or have to be sold to "just anybody" so they won't starve. And if you know anybody who wants yaks and will love and care for them, PLEASE let us know.

Any small amount you can contribute would be a great help. If you can't help financially, please help by passing on the word.





More info here: Save the Critter Project and here: A Sad Intermission for the Critter Project

Herd Transitions

Sometimes things come along and make you readjust your attitude and your priorities. Ferdie's birth has been one of those. Not just for us, but for the yaks as well.

We've now spent two near-sleepless nights perking our ears for the stealthy approach of large critters. We live in cougar, bear and coyote territory, so that's not much of a surprise. Unfortunately, Ferdie has decided that her favorite space in the corral is right up against the edge of the fence, where she could be vulnerable. On the good side, the dogs are constantly alert for anything roaming in the night. Of course that includes racoons, possums and potentially mice. Welcome to being awakened at 2 a.m. Because the dogs smelled...something.

Quantum and I have spent the last two days with perma-grin. Watching Ferdie's antics has been...just blow-away. We are convinced that she is the cutest little animal since the gods first created cute little animals.

We spent the first dozen or so hours of her birth worried because she wasn't nursing. Within the first few hours, Zoozoo kicked (gently) at her. As a first time mommy heifer, she wasn't used to someone trying to nuzzle at her underparts. I'm sure her thoughts were something along the line of, "What the heck! That tickles." Just before Quantum was ready to go to the feed store next morning for colostrum formula, Zoozoo started letting her nurse without kicking her away. Gods, the relief!

The change in the herd dynamics has been profound. Before this, Yonkers was the undisputed Queen of the corral. Bitchy, defensive, and never having had a good relationship with humans, we've been challenged in dealing with her from the start. We got her at age nine, and it was clear that she'd never been tractable, and never liked people very much. We've got the impression that the folks we bought her from figured, "sell her to some schmuck or make her into hamburger." Her purpose, before we got her was breeding babies and more babies, without much care or interest in helping her to be gentle.

Quantum has done a world of work with her in the nearly two years that she's been ours. She went from, "approach at your peril" to a creature who though not easily handle-able was at least respectful when we entered the corral. And for the last 6 months she's been eating out of our hands, even though she will still charge the corral fence when I or strangers approach.

This winter when the girls escaped for the third time, Yonkers managed to put a huge gouge in our friend RY's butt. It wasn't her fault. He got tired of waiting for her to get in the trailer (he's impatient) and wacked her over the head with a metal pipe. So I thought Yonk was fully justified in turning around and burying one of her horns in his butt-cheek. Good thing he wasn't facing the other direction!

Knowing how nasty Yonkers can be, we thought we' d need to separate her from Zoozoo and the baby once it was born.

As part of her job as Corral Queen, Yonkers has the idea that her time should be spent convincing her two daughters that humans are evil and not to be trusted. However her yak-mommy instincts turned against her in a way. It's the natural instinct of most mommy animals to wean their older children in favor of their younger babies. That meant that Yazoo (the older daughter) was getting chased from the hay piles and the water bucket on a regular basis. Which left our Zoozoo open to the wiles of my husband, who would make sure that Zoo had her own special pile of hay when Yonkers tried to chase her away from the food. Despite that ZooZoo has been told by Momma that humans were evil, it was humans who were making sure she had enough to eat.

Meanwhile 2-yr old Yeti is just on the verge of being weaned. I saw her nursing only a few months ago, and that might still be going on when I'm not looking. Yeti has taken up her Mom's stance of "people are scary" and doesn't let us touch her.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, that all changed.

Within moments of Ferdie's birth, Zoozoo, who had been somewhat "on the fence" regarding human involvement in her life, has come a bare step away from total acceptance. We are both (and the both part is a surprise, since she likes Quantum a heck of a lot more than she likes me) allowed to touch and handle the baby, get in the corral and push the baby towards her. In fact, when baby Ferdie gets herself somewhere between the wood and the electric wiring (now turned off) of the corral, I get the feeling that she's actually happy that someone is there and ready to push her baby towards her.

Yeti has gone from shy sibling to doting aunt. She's fascinated by anything the baby does and posts herself in guard position near baby Ferdie.

But the biggest change has been with Yonkers. Suddenly she doesn't act like she's the biggest and most important yak in the corral. After a few times of pushing off Ferdie (who wanted to nurse and couldn't figure out who to turn to for that) Yonkers is now quietly following the other yaks around.

And being pleasant and gentle to the point where Quantum has crawled into the yak pen stark naked (hey it's hot here!) without the slightest worry or challenge to his various man-parts.

Less than 24 hours from the miracle birth of our grandbaby, and it's somehow changed the herd dynamics to allow us to be accepted.

It's a Baby Yak!

Ferdie

Born 7/2/2012 7:14pm

OMG it's happening!

We're trying to relax after a rough day in town and car breakdowns. I look over at Yazoo and notice that she's at the far side of the corral, lying flat on the ground in a rather unusual way. The baby bump is getting bigger every day.

"I think it's going to be soon," I tell Quantum. "Maybe in the next couple days." The other two girls are chowing down and I figure I should bring her some hay of her own. Yonkers chases her away from the food sometimes.

Just as I get back inside, Quantum looks out the window. "Oh my god! It's happening! It's happening NOW!"

Zoozoo (that's still Yazoo - our pet name for her) has her tail up and there's a pink bubble forming there.

I run for the camera. (Thanks again, Mom!) "Her water broke," Quantum says.

Absolute terror sets into both of our hearts. Neither of us has ever helped a critter give birth. We're miles from the nearest large animal vet, miles from town, and we're not even sure the truck will run. It had vapor-lock before, and we barely made it home. Besides that, even though Zoozoo has become relatively accepting of Quantum (and me to a lesser degree) we doubt she'll let us help if she needs it. She doesn't like to be touched. We've read that yaks are easy birthers, but as first time grandparents, we're trembling.

Yonkers and Yeti are curious, but Zoozoo makes it clear that she wants to be left alone, so Quantum climbs into the corral and keeps them away from her.

We watch, helpless, as Zoozoo grunts and strains and the bubble gets bigger and bigger. We can see tiny white hooves inside the veil of the birth sack. And then it slips out, landing on the ground, a tiny, motionless form of black and white.

Moments after birth.

"It's alive! It's breathing!" Quantum says. Both of us slump with relief.

Zoozoo starts licking the baby and eating the birth sack away. It's already clear she's going to be a doting mother. We watch, enthralled, as the baby makes several attempts to get to her (at least it might be a her, we're still not positive) feet.

"You can do it, Ferdie," Quantum says.

This morning. 10 hours old.

"You do realize that whether it's a boy or a girl, that's it's name." I say

He smiles over at me, his face alight.

We'd actually hoped for a bull-calf, because we had considered studding him out. We'd like to get the local ranchers interested in cow-yak hybrids. So if it was a boy, we planned on naming it Ferdinand. We hadn't picked a girl name yet.

It's so tiny and perfect and fragile. We don't care what its sex is. We're already deeply in love.Zoozoo keeps licking away and Ferdie struggles to rise and plops back down in the dirt several times.

Then she's up, tottering on the very tips of her hooves. She can't seem to figure out how to use them yet. She falls down again then finally rises and take a few wobbly steps forward. Straight towards me. Zoozoo stands alongside her, but doesn't protest Ferdie's interest in me.

Still a little wobbly.

I put my hand through the fence and she comes over to me, her pink nose just inches from my hand. She sniffs and gives a little baby yak grunt.

The two of us are stuck halfway between laughter and tears.

The other yaks are very curious, especially Yeti, but Quantum and Zoozoo make sure they keep their distance.

We're surprised by her coloring. Both of her parents are black Imperials with a white patch on their foreheads and white socks. Ferdie is a Royal, like her grandfather Sherpa, black in the front, white in the back, with spots and patches, here and there, white legs and a wide blaze down her nose.

We go inside, and let them be, feeling high and exhausted. It's going to be a long night, because neither of us are going to get much sleep, especially with the coyotes living so close.

More Yak Pics Today

Well we finally figured out how to get our camera working. So here are some photos for you to enjoy.

First of all here's our Pit Bull puppy Zen, intrigued by the weird noises that the camera is making.

 Zen was absolutely fascinated with the camera. I'm hoping he won't eat it. The girls were less thrilled about having their photos taken. But we managed to get some anyway. Squeaks on the other hand, hid under the bed.

 

One of our Yaks in the pasture. I think this might be Yazoo but it's hard to tell from this angle.

This one is definitely Yazoo, you can tell by the heart-shaped star on her face.

Yazoo at the fence and curious.

And our girly-girl Yazoo back in the pasture.

Here's baby Yeti-Starr munching on some hay and getting herself covered with it in the process.

Yonkers isn't thrilled when we come near. Notice the broken fence in the foreground. That's because she wanted to get at the hay.

Yonkers glowering at me from the corral.

Yonkers and Yeti off to the pasture for some grass.

In other news, Quantum has been working on making us a stone oven. The idea is that we'll use it for baking and also run a pipe from the heated area into the trailer, and maybe get some warmth! I've always wanted a brick oven for bread and pizza, so I'm completely thrilled.

My stone oven in progress.

Closer up, looking at the stone oven.

And here's a really cool stump that Quantum found while he was wandering around in our woods. We've got no idea what we'll do with it yet. Probably some kind of sculpture.

A nifty stump.

Picking Up the Poop

Well, Yonkers seems gloriously healthy again. Which also means that Yonkers is back to her ornery self. Now, any time we come near the fence, she charges at us and bats little Yeti and Yazoo out of the way with her horns.

Just when we were getting friendly with Yazoo, too.

It also didn't help when Zen got loose the other day and I ran screaming into the corral to make sure they didn't attack him. Brat!

So they're not too thrilled with me at the moment, and picking up the poop becomes more challenging. Until I get back in their good graces, I'm waiting till they wander out into their pasture and then muck out the corral.

Somebody has to do this job, so it may as well be me. After all, I'm sure standing in pure manure could harm their hooves.

Fortunately the job itself isn't too bad. Unlike human and predator poop, yak poop doesn't smell that bad to me. I guess I associate the smell with my fond memories of my pony and my aunt's horses and cows. On the annoying side, life might be easier if I had one of these:

instead of one of these:

The annoying thing with the shovel is that I end up picking up large amounts of dirt or hay along with the manure. That won't hurt my compost pile, but it does mean I fill buckets faster. Is there a correct method for mucking up a corral or stall? Advice in making this job easy would be appreciated, since my girls poop a lot!

For those of you who need to know, yak manure is much like cow manure. It comes out either in little round pellets (I'm thinking this might be baby Yeti) or bigger stuck-together piles. I prefer the piles, since they're much easier to get onto the shovel.

My garden will be happy come spring. Quantum's also working out an idea for an incinerator to burn yak and maybe even human, dog and cat manure and heat the house with it. Note that this furnace will be outdoors, with a pipe of non-poop smelling air coming in. Anything that makes this trailer warm will make me a happy camper!

CK Gored and Yak Dancing - On Our Land Days 19-27 Part2

That night we strung a heat lamp over the corral (running it with the pickup engine and the inverter) and stayed up all night. Our big fear was that with Yonkers so sick, she wouldn't be able to defend the herd if predators were around. In fact predators might even be attracted by a sick animal. And despite the fact that yaks are naturally furry critters, innate to cold mountain climes, we wanted her to have warmth if she desired it.

She looked like hell, and we were terrified she wouldn't make it through the night. A few times she lay down, and that scared us until we noticed the two younger girls were doing so as well. I do realize that cattle often lay down to chew their cud, but I'd also read a lot about "downed cows."

Quantum loaded the guns and watched them till about 2am. Around 4 I woke up and sat watch till morning.

In the morning, Yonkers looked pretty bad, but at least she was still alive. Quantum got up in time to drive out and call the vet by 8am, and then to get more hay and Senior Feed for Yonkers. By almost noon he hadn't returned and I was starting to get worried. Had the truck broken down?

No, it turned out that he'd gone to the hardware store for more wood. When he'd called the vet (a cattle vet from Trinidad, not Zen's local vet) the guy had asked him if we had a chute or squeeze box to put Yonkers in. Otherwise he wouldn't be unable to treat her. "I'll make something by the time you get here," Quantum said.

We immediately set to building something, racing the clock.

By 3:30 it was partially assembled, and time for me to run out to call the vet, and arrange where we'd meet him. "Hurry up back, I need the truck to run the power tools," Quantum said, thinking that the vet wouldn't be there yet, and that we were only arranging a place and time.

But no, Dr. Kirk was already on our main road when I called him. He and I looked over the yaks while Quantum and CK struggled to finish the chute. We got it pieced together, the doc helping. Then for the fun, trying to get the thing into the corral and get her into it.  CK, Quantum and I carried/dragged it in. With it unfinished and no gate yet on the back, we weren't sure how to get her in, and our best idea was to try to catch her up against the side of the corral so she'd have nowhere else to go.

What we didn't count on was the fact that sick as she was, she wasn't going to take that sort of nonsense. As we approached with the chute, she put on a burst of power and ran at CK. I'd seen her move quick when we put them in the trailer, but even that was nothing. In seconds she charged at him, stomping his foot and goring into him with her horns. Fortunately her horns are curved back and didn't pierce. It was terrifying. CK got a big bruise slightly above his groin and hopefully a bit of respect for her. He's lucky he's got so much flab that she didn't bang any internal organs.

We all stood back and considered what to do. Finally the doc decided to give us a needle with the antibiotic and told us to finish the chute/pen and then lure her in with some of the Senior Feed (which all three seemed to like).

Doc Kirk is about our age, I'd guess (late 40's) and has a great smile and kind eyes. We'd been dreading the charge, since we're on the verge of broke at the moment, and figuring somewhere between $250 and $500, but he was actually pretty lenient on us. And wow, he was even willing to help hold the posts on the chute while we screwed it together. Truly a nice guy and we're happy to have him for our farm critters. I won't give up the vet in town because I like him as well, but since he doesn't do farm animals, I'll keep them both.

The doc left, and as it was once again getting dark and rainy (we've had rain pretty much every afternoon for the past several days) we decided to let them sniff on the chute overnight and get used to it, and we'd finish it in the morning. It was fairly clear that no way was she getting the shot that night.

Tuesday we worked on the chute. Meanwhile some pretty nifty things happened. First, Yonkers actually looked a little better in the morning. We were determined that she'd still get the shot, but we were also grateful that her nose had dried up a little and that she'd managed to clean it in the water trough.

Zen managed to slip past me on the leash. Of course he headed straight for the corral. I raced after him, catching him just before he got there. To our amazement, the yaks weren't aggressive, just very curious. Zen sniffed at them, they sniffed at him, standing only a few feet apart. It occurred to us that the folks we'd bought the yaks from also raised dogs. They hadn't mentioned socializing the yaks with their dogs, but I'm now fairly sure that the girls were used to seeing and smelling dogs on some level. Yeti was the most curious, and the first one to come toward Zen.

Later while I was getting them some more of the Senior Feed, and uncovering their hay (we'd put a tarp over most of it when it rained the night before) Yazoo came really close to me. I offered her a handful of hay, and she sniffed and backed away. I tried it a second time, and she reached out her huge tongue and started licking my fingers. Its a funny feeling. Almost like a cat's tongue, but not as rough.

Even later, we noticed the little girls play. Yeti started it, kicking up her heels and bouncing.  She nuzzled over to Yazoo, and got her into the game. The two of them started bouncing and running in a circle around the corral. Yak dancing. It was astounding to watch. Like having National Geographic in our own backyard. Their swiftness and power was an eye-opener, letting us know just how lucky CK had been. These critters can MOVE! Yazoo's heels came nearly as high as the top bar on the corral - about 6 ft off the ground.

Quantum says it's becoming clear that the yaks feel the most comfortable with me. He chalks it up to estrogen. Though he warns me that I do need to be a bit more cautious around them. Since I'll be the one training them to pack and eventually milking them, this is probably a good thing.

They like Quantum, though probably not as much just yet. But its obvious that they feel pretty comfortable around him as well.

CK they don't seem to like at all. Yazoo, so curious and calm with me, actually charged him when he was standing outside the corral. I'm now used to Yonkers stamping and charging a little bit, but I'd never seen that behavior from Yazoo at all. Part of it is that Yazoo seems to realize that with mom feeling low she needs to be the protective one. Anytime CK gets near the corral, all three of them back up to the farthest side from him.

Quantum says that CK doesn't have any respect for anyone, including himself, and the yaks sense it. I wonder if it's that, or the fact that CK, being huge (around 375 lbs.) looks like more of a threat? (I'm only 5'5", and though not as thin as I'd like to be, I'm not a large person. Quantum is a stick.) Also I tend to talk soft and deep - unless I'm ticked off at someone. Quantum modulates his voice around the yaks as well, and works to not come off as threatening. CK's vocal tone is what I'd call grating and whiny. But then as you've probably guessed, CK and I don't get along well.

Meanwhile, the night before I'd noticed that Zen was favoring one foot. Also he was starting to get itchy hives (possibly stress)and chew at them. At first I thought he'd been chewing the pads on his feet, but then I noticed it was more than that, and that he has a small infection on his paw. By flashlight I soaked it and put on Triple Antibiotic, and covered his foot with a sock. Going to have to keep an eye on that. Just what I need. But I think I can deal with this without a vet visit. I hope.

Monday night I made fried chicken. Quantum says it was the best he's ever had. Considering I was working in the dark over a stovetop outdoors, I'm pretty happy with that. Tuesday I made Thai Stuffed Peppers and they were pretty amazing too. I'd wanted to use coconut milk but discovered we were out. I'm guestimating the amounts, since I didn't measure, but here's the basic recipe.

Thai Stuffed Peppers with Chicken:

2 Chicken breasts, brined (see below)
Rice, 1 1/2 cups?
4 Green bell peppers
Rice, 1 1/2 cups
Sesame oil, 1 tablespoon
Hoisin Sauce, about 3 tablespoons, divided
Ginger root, about 1" piece, minced
Garlic, about 3 cloves, minced
1/2 Serrano pepper, minced
Olive oil, 2-3 tablespoons

Brine:
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
Garlic powder, 1 tablespoon
Cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon
Hot Sauce. a dash or three
1/2 gallon water

Mix all brine ingredients. Put in the chicken breasts and let sit in the fridge for approximately 2 hours. (The longer you let it sit, the more salty it will be.) Remove the chicken from the brine and rinse. Discard the brine, don't reuse, as this can spread unwelcome bacteria.

Boil the rice with water (or you could use chicken stock) about 1 knuckle (yes, measure it with your fingers) over the level of the rice, and the sesame oil, till al dente (slightly chewy).

Saute the chicken in olive oil until nicely browned on both sides. Remove from heat and chop into about 1/4" cubes.

Cut the caps off the peppers, and clean out the seeds. Reserve the "cups" of the peppers for stuffing. Chop up the caps. Saute the veggies (except the pepper cups) in the pan from the chicken using the leftover oil and chicken juices, until the pepper chunks are wilted but still firm.

Mix the rice, chicken and veggies in a bowl, and add 2 tablespoons of the hoisin sauce. Stuff the pepper cups with this mixture.

In the same frying pan you used for everything else, place the stuffed pepper cups. Add water about 1" lower than the top of the pepper cups. Add the remaining tablespoon of hoisin sauce to the water. Cover tightly with tinfoil and simmer over medium heat for approximately 45 minutes.

Remove the peppers from the pan. The cups should now look a bit wilted and be fork soft. You can now boil the water that you steamed the peppers in until reduced thick enough to make a sauce. (I didn't have time for that as it was getting late.) Add several tablespoons cold water mixed with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch for faster thickening.

Yak Pneumonia - On Our Land Days 19-27 Part1

It's been a crazy week. With the Blazer out of commission, we focused on building the corral. Not nearly as easy a task as we'd thought. The post holes had to be made bigger and then deeper, not an easy chore even with the auger. Since I was afraid to drive the pickup (it's huge) CK did most of the driving into town. Plus CK looks for any excuse to go drive somewhere, get out of work and blather with everyone and anyone. So it wasn't until Friday that Quantum took a run into town.

There he got the news that T&R had been trying to find us, and that Yonkers was looking very sick. She'd come down with pneumonia. This is something that tends to happen with cattle when they're shipped, and has an incubation period of about 2 weeks to a month. T got pretty upset and since he hadn't been able to contact us, was considering giving our yaks away to anyone who would take them. I'm not sure when she came down sick or when he first tried contacting us, but between our focus on the corral, our lack of phone and our inability to get into town, we'd been out of contact with him for about a week and a half.

So naturally we freaked out. Quantum arranged for T's friend who had a horse trailer to help bring the yaks to our land. Quantum and I spent all of Saturday putting the corral together as fast as we could. (CK once again copped out and went into town saying he desperately needed a shower. Weenie.) Fortunately we'd already got the posts in, and would have been done soon anyway. Just as CK was returning, we realized we'd made a mistake and not sent CK for more hay and whatever else the yaks might need. And the feedstore closes at 12 on Saturdays and isn't open at all on Sunday.

Sunday morning we still hadn't gotten the gate finished, but it was moving day for the yaks, and we didn't have a choice. Quantum gave CK instructions on finishing the gate and we took off. Yonkers looked terrible. Her nose was dripping with snot and she was having trouble breathing. She looked like hell and it was scaring the heck out of me.

Getting the yaks into the trailer was no small feat. RY, (T's friend with the trailer) is a huge gap-toothed dude, with a funny sarcastic manner. And brave. He got in the pen and tried herding them in with a broomstick. T got in as well, holding a log in front of him. Now the best way to get them in would have been to put some food in the trailers and wait till they went for it. But RY didn't have time for that (he seems to be on the local fire-response team as well).

Naturally, Yonkers wasn't thrilled with this idea and gave a couple charges at them. Its amazing how fast that old lady can move, even sick. Eventually we got them in the trailer and made the slow journey to our place. RY had already warned Quantum that if he couldn't make it up the road, we'd have to let them out of the trailer and walk them up. He wasn't going to wreck out his truck (can't blame him for that). I was dreading this possibility, especially after seeing how hard they'd been to control getting them in the trailer. I had a clothesline that I'd knotted (we didn't have any stronger rope) and my best thought was to get the rope around Yeti and sit in the back of the pickup leading her, and that the other two would probably follow.

We were lucky. The night before it had rained, and somehow that smoothed out some of the ruts. No problem getting RY's truck up the drive.

We got them in the pen, RY left and I spent the rest of the day researching what kind of illness Yonkers might have. And also what I could feed her. We had enough hay, but I wanted to try getting something like a warm gruel into her. I made up a concoction of turnips, onions, oatmeal, barley, carrots, apples and molasses. She wasn't impressed. A horse would have been thrilled. But these guys don't seem to have been exposed to more than hay and range cakes, and they don't seem to know what other stuff is.

We sent CK back out to town to call the vet's emergency number. He returned with the info that it sounded like pneumonia. (Much as I'd expected - the official name is Bovine Respiratory Disease.) We'd have to go out early to call the vet again, but his assistant said he could probably make it out to us the next afternoon.

Its a ...Dri! (Girl)

Yesterday we got the call we'd been looking forward to and dreading.  Looking forward, because we're thrilled to have our yaks.  Dreading because we're still scrambling to get packed, fix up our two trailers and trucks and get the heck out to our land.  We were hoping to already be in Colorado by the time she was born.

HCC Yeti-Starr was born around noon (Colorado time) on April 12th.  She's completely adorable.  Black with a little white star on her forehead.  The sellers were kind enough to send us some photos.

Here's Yonkers with Yeti-Starr.  Isn't Yonkers a beauty!  Regal and motherly.  You can just barely see the star that gave little Yeti the second half of her name.  (The sellers had already named a previous calf Yeti, so we had to either add to her name or change it, for registry reasons - yes there really is a yak registry.  I'll see if I can locate it at some point and add the link.)

Here's another picture of Yonkers and Yeti-Starr.  Isn't she adorable with her wobbly legs and her too little white rear hooves?  These pics were taken yesterday, so she's only a few hours old here.  I can't wait to pet her and play with her!  Of course that's going to mean making friends with Yonkers, since yak mommies are very protective.  I'm thinking a generous supply of carrots and apples. 

And here's Yeti's big sister, Yazoo.  She's about a year old now.  What a pretty young lady! Her star reminds me of a state map - is it Texas, New York, Nevada?  Or maybe just the state of bliss I'm in, contemplating the additions to our family.

Hopefully mommy won't be as protective of her now that she has the baby to worry about.  We don't know if Yonkers will be tame-able enough to milk, but we're hoping Yazoo will, by the time she's old enough to have her own babies (probably next year or so).  Meanwhile I'm going to work on making good friends with this big girl, so that she's happy being touched.

Yak Pics Have Arrived!

Finally got some pics of our girls.

This elegant cow is Yonkers.

And this sweet little girl is Yazoo.  Her star looks like either the state of Texas or the state of New York, not sure which.