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

What the Heck Is RY's Motive?

This isn't the first time RY's done wacky stuff. It's just the first time he's been caught flat out.

Last winter our yaks got loose, and were missing for a few days. They went up to A's a rancher acquaintance (who we met because of the first time the girls got escaped) but in the meanwhile RY shows up saying that someone had called him around midnight sounding drunk and saying "this is Quantum! Where's my expletive deleted yaks?"

The fact that they claimed to believe it was us was pretty funny. Quantum drinks a bit on occasion, but never to the point where he actually gets drunk, and they know that. Moreover, our choices for cell reception are on top of the roof of the trailer (dangerous to get to, especially in winter, and we only rarely get reception there anyway) or drive 10 minutes/walk 30 to an area that we can make calls from. At the time RY did have a grandson visiting with him, a pretty messed up kid, so we thought maybe the kid had something to do with it. Later I began to suspect it was a lie RY had cooked up himself.

A couple days later when the yaks finally made it up to A's place, Quantum needed some help herding them into the corral and then needed to borrow RY's trailer to get them home. RY didn't want to help for some reason. Quantum tried herding them alone, with little luck. The next day RY promised to show.

RY arrived at A's ranch without the trailer and with a police escort. "Someone reported that your yaks were starving and maltreated," RY said.

"That's ridiculous," Quantum said. "Look at them, they're fat and glossy in their winter coats. Who would say that? For that matter who even knows they were missing? And who's even seen them way out here?" Our land is pretty secluded so most people in town don't know we have yaks, and less still have ever set eyes on them. A's land is equally remote.

The police looked at the yaks, concluded they looked quite healthy and left. But by that time the snow was falling and it was too late to capture the yaks. Especially since RY hadn't even bothered bringing his trailer.

That meant the yaks had to stay at A's for two weeks until the snow cleared enough to haul them home. Which also meant that we had to pay A for boarding them during that time.

I suspected RY on the police call for quite some time, but Quantum wouldn't believe it for quite a while, and we had no proof.

When they finally loaded the yaks up, a couple weeks after, RY got impatient with Yonkers and wacked her over the head with a metal pipe. I was highly gratified when Yonkers turned around and gored him right in the butt.

Over the past couple years there've been other similar incidents, though none as bad and none as memorable.

So what's RY's deal on complaining to M's landlord about my allegedly loose pit bulls?

It's possible that he's mad at CK for having moved out. CK and I had a falling out about a year ago and CK moved to RY's place and into a trailer. Where RY and his wife proceeded to skin CK for every penny they could get out of him. Now that he's moved out of there, maybe they're mad at having lost the golden-egged goose.

It's possible they resent Quantum and I because of the fact that they owe us money and hay. Some people get like that, I guess.

Over the last few months, as RY and his wife have been becoming more and more annoying/nasty to us, I've been avoiding them. Not to mention they're nosy buggers. Just today (before we found out who'd made the call about my dogs, his wife S called because she wanted to know what our sleeping arrangements were here. I'm not sleeping with CK and I'm not sleeping with M, but if I was, it isn't HER business. (M was quite affronted!) So maybe they're resentful that I wasn't coming around more. Truth is I rarely come to town, since when Quantum goes out I usually stay to be with the dogs. Bushi doesn't like the truck and taking all 3 into town is a handful. Until this last couple of weeks I'd been to town all of 4 times since January.

Its possible they resented us because it started to become clear that we were no longer letting them drain us of resources the way they do most of the folks they come into contact with.

No matter the answer, I'm ticked.

Yaks Return and Dogs vs. Yaks Round 1

I haven't even had a chance to write a post introducing our 3^rd rescue pit bull, Karma. (I'' do that soon.) She's a wonderful sweet puppy, and we adore her, but one thing we found out...she doesn't like yaks.

Karma the instigator. *sigh*

The yaks had been on walkabout for about a month, so Karma had never met them. The coyotes were howling one night and we saw SOMETHING flash past in the dark, approximately coyote-sized, so we figure that was the impetus for them breaking down one of the boards in their pen and hiking off to who-knows where. We'd been searching for them everywhere, with no luck. The other times they escaped we'd found them at the home of a nearby rancher. This time they were seen near there but by the time someone contacted us (we don't have phone at our place) and Quantum got up there, the girls were off somewhere again.

The Return

Last week, while Quantum was in FL dealing with his mom, the dogs were running about doing their usual roughhousing when I heard one of them barking. I looked out and there at the curve of the driveway and there they were. Amazingly they'd found their way home.

They looked beautifully fit, if a bit muddy. I leaped outside, called the dogs in and spent a half hour coaxing the girls into the pen. The weren't the least bit interested in hay. Not with all the gorgeous grass in the fields, but water they wanted. Yeti was the first to follow my water bucket and Zoozoo and baby Ferdie followed her. Yonkers wasn't impressed. She's wary of most people, and even though she likes me more than most, her affection for me is grudging at best. I let her roam around for a while, knowing she wouldn't stray far from her herd, and eventually she came right up to the gate. She was hoping the other girls would come out and join her, but instead I talked her into going in with them.

Things were okay for a couple of days, although Ferdie found an escape route (she's a little Houdini) and Yazoo managed to follow her. Another couple hours with the dogs locked in the trailer and me wandering around trying to get them back in the pen. And then an hour later they were standing by the gate, asking to be let back in.

Round One

Then the trouble started. Zen and Bushi had never bothered the yaks while they were in their pen, though Zen was apt to flip out a bit when Ferdie got out. He's very concerned about "everything in its place" and knows the yaks belong inside their fence. It hadn't occurred to me that the addition of a third dog would change the equation.

I was outside doing some cleanup when Karma started barking at the yaks. I shushed her a few times. Suddenly she dove under one of the fence rails and into the pen. The yaks charged. Bushi, hearing her pack-mate in distress, ran in after her. Zen raced back and forth outside the pen and then plunged into the fray as well.

The yaks all clustered together. Bushi and Karma ran right into the center of them, nipping their heels. Zen ran in circles coming back and forth to snipe. I don't know how long it lasted. Probably only 10 minutes or so. It felt like hours. One of those times when life goes into slow-mo. Bushi got picked up by a set of horns and tossed through the air. Karma and Bushi both were trampled and pushed around. Then Bushi was hanging from a yak's ear (so much going on that I couldn't tell which) as if she were an earring. She managed to rip out BOTH Yonkers' and Yazoo's ear tags.

For myself, I was screaming for the dogs to stop and to come to me. They're usually relatively obedient but not with this massacre going on. I'm running around trying to catch Zen as he darts in and out, and each time I almost had him, he barrels into me and my glasses (one earpiece is broken) keep falling off. I finally managed to grab Zen as he raced around. Threw him into our trailer. That broke the fight up and after a harrowing few more minutes, the other two left the pen.

Both Bushi and Karma were covered with yak blood, but there wasn't a scratch on any of the three dogs. The yaks were okay other than their ear tags.

As horrified as I was with the fight itself, I can't help but be amazed with three dogs that were able to stand up to three adult yaks (about 700 pounds each) and come out relatively unscathed. I was sure that one of the dogs would end up with broken bones, or worse a broken spine or something else devastating and fatal. It was one of the scariest moments of my entire adult life. And there was more to come.

Bushi's Boo-Boo

As if trying to rehome the yaks wasn't traumatic enough, out dog Bushi developed a large hematoma (blood blister) as a result of last week's inadvertent yak vs. dog fight. (I'll post about THAT trauma in a future post.)

Bushi really prefers to wear hot pink.

This morning I spent my waking-up-should-be-drinking-coffee time attempting for about the 5^th time in18 hours, to make one of CK's XXXL t-shirts into a suitable covering. (Any of Quantum or my t-shirts are back home and probably need the laundry before I can use them.) The t-shirt is so that she doesn't bleed all over the place, since the wound is draining, and will be for gods-know how long.

With Bushi's Lady Gagaesque makeup, she's always been a fashion queen, but this is ridiculous!

Bushi's hematoma lump pre-surgery.

The lump showed up Sunday morning. Maybe I hadn't noticed it earlier because CK and I spent 4 days straight, dawn to dusk working on securing the yak pen. I woke up Sunday, looked at her chest and had a panic moment. The lump was the size of a tennis ball.

Our wonderful vet, Doc Roberts had to cut the lump open to drain. I'm always terrified when my dogs have to have anesthesia, since Zen nearly died on the operating table when he was neutered as a puppy.

Today I get the exquisite joy of taking her into the bathroom and flushing it out, first with peroxide, then with a chlorhexidine solution. The peroxide flush is only for the first few days, but the chlorhexidine flush goes on until I can no longer get the syringe into the wound. Oh what fun!

The hematoma itself didn't seem to hurt. Despite my attempts to keep her quiet until I could take her to the vet (and of all weeks to have a Monday holiday!) she wanted to bounce around, chase rabbits and cause her usual trouble.

The surgery seems to have left her a bit sore though. She spent half the night on the floor, probably because getting up on the bed was uncomfortable. Last night I'd helped her onto the bed and she decided to get down for water and some crunchies. She let out a tiny heart-rending little yelp and before I could reach her, the other dogs were circling her, sniffing and consoling. They hate it when any of their pack is in pain.

At this point, when we're scrambling for money for hay, $80 wasn't really something that we could afford. Many thanks to the kind person who contributed to our Save the Critter Project fund and made it possible to bring her to the vet.

Help Save the Critter Project!

Ferdie

As I said in my last post, we were trying to sell the yaks. We're devastated by this. But now it's worse.

We'd contacted the breeder who got Yazoo pregnant with Ferdie and hoped he could help us. He thought he could find a home for Yeti and Yonkers and would keep Yazoo and Ferdie himself. (And we'd hoped we could buy back at least those two once we return to Colorado.

Yonkers with Yeti as a baby

Now things are more dire.

I have enough gasoline for the generator (so that I can stay here and feed them) and enough hay to feed them on for only TWO DAYS. The breeder says it may take a month or so. It's not safe to let them roam (I'll write a post about that in the near future).

Yazoo

Please if you can donate a little money for hay and gasoline so that I can stay here and feed them - or enough to help us find someone to board them, I'd be entirely grateful.

Please I beg you. If you can post this on Facebook or Tweet it or pass it along in any other manner, please let others know.

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.

The Yaks are Found!

It must be Christmas! Squeaky's return was a miracle. But more holiday miracles were on the way.

Yesterday afternoon, our friends RY and Sue pulled into our snow-packed driveway to tell us that the yaks had been located. We'd placed an ad in the local paper, and sure enough, someone called. Glad Quantum was smart enough to include RY's number along with our own, since we still can't get cell service out here.

The girls are doing well, and next week RY will help us trailer them back home. A local rancher found them 5 miles away, wandering across the road. He called the local cops a few times - which really disturbs me, because we'd been in contact with the police and they said they hadn't had any word. Then he finally found our ad.

As I understand, they're all well, though they were scrawny and dehydrated. Silly beasts! They had access to a stream and plenty of grass if they'd stayed close, the way all sense suggested they would. The rancher has had them for 2 weeks now, but was nice enough to wait to contact the real owners - a few folks wanted to take them off his hands.

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. 

Yakking about Yaks

Well we went and did it.  Just sent them the money for the yaks.  The shakes set in for a while, this morning.  Now we're really committed.  Not only do we own the yaks, but we need to hustle to get our butts out of Florida by the time Yonkers' new calf is born, probably in late March or early April.

Well since you probably think I'm insane, I should write a little about Yaks.  Maybe then you'll have a clue why we decided to do this.

Here's a pic of Sherpa, Yazoo's daddy.  Pretty, isn't he?

The yak, or Bos grunniens is an ancient long-haired bovine from the Himalayan region.  If we want to get picky, in the Tibetan language, Yonkers isn't actually a "yak" since that means a male.  She's actually a "dri" or "nak".  The name for the species in Tibetan is "gyag".  Oh and just to round out our little language lesson, a wild yak, as opposed to a domesticated one is called a "brong" or "drong".  Isn't Wikipedia helpful?

Yaks seem to do best between altitudes of 10,000-18,000 feet, so our land, at about 6100 feet is close enough that they should be fine.  I've found several yak ranchers in Colorado, so things are looking good there.

They're used for milk and milkfat, meat (don't even think about it!) wool and as beasts of burden.  I'm told that the milk is a rich creamy color that's not quite pink, and has a very high fat content - about 5-7%.  Anthony Bourdain says that yak butter tea (which is made it seems from tea and yak butter, go figure) is surprisingly tasty, so I'll be looking forward to trying that at least once and I'll let you know it goes.

I've wanted to learn cheesemaking for some time.  Since I love fresh mozzarella, I'm planning on that being one of my first projects.  In Italy they use domesticated water buffalo to make mozzarella, so I figure yak mozzarella should be doable.

I'm looking forward to packing with our yaks too.  Parts of our land is are a bit steep and rocky, and if we're going to move anything heavy around, teaching our yaks to help carry it will definitely help.  Fortunately yaks tend to be very nimble, and can go places that would be dangerous for horses.

 According to Wiki the wild drongs make terrible pack animals, so it seems that in domesticating them, humans have made some changes in them.   Humans tend to do that kind of stuff.  In this case it seems to be a happy change, though.

Quantum wants to teach the yaks to plow - yeah, the old fashioned way!  This way we don't pollute the air with gasoline from a roto-tiller. 

The fiber makes a smooth, soft down - and they say it's not itchy!  Amongst a myriad of other things, I guess I'm going to need a loom and a spinning wheel.  About 20 years ago a friend who had a goat farm taught me a little about weaving.  Guess I'm going to have to relearn that.  I could sell the stuff, and it seems to get a good price, but I think our family probably need at least one warm comfy robe each, for the cold winter days.

Yak dung is used for cooking fires.  Somehow I think I'll forego that one.  I'd much rather put it into the ground as compost.  They also use the butter for oil lamps.  Given the choice, I'll use normal oil and put the milk into my cheese.

So those are the possible benefits.  Now on to taking care of them:

Yaks eat about one third the amount of food that the average beef cow does.  That means that we can keep them on far less land than if we had regular cows.  They seem to be easy to fence, and they don't need shelter except during the worst weather.  When we visited our land last March, we saw bobcat tracks, and Quantum says the "dirt guy" (the guy who is supposed to do our driveway) saw cougar poop.  And we definitely have bear.  In fact the local name for our stream is Bear Creek.  With that in mind, I think we'll have to build them a barn for nighttime, though the lady we're buying them from says that a yak cow will have no problem chasing away mountain lions.

Another plus, they "calve easily" according to every site I've found.  No doubt calling a vet out to help birth your calves is expensive, so I'm going to appreciate that.  I just finished reading All Creatures Great and Small, a story about a country vet in Britain in the 1940s, and his book starts with a description of him with his hand up a cow, trying to turn the calf around.  I could very happily live without that experience if I can help it.

Yonkers is 9 years old, and has given birth to seven calves so far.  Five of those have been heifers (females) so we're told that the baby is about 70% likely to be female.  All their cows have "Y" names, so I'm thinking of naming this one Yeti.

The sellers want us to be there for the birth and meet our cow beforehand.  Yak mommies get very protective of their babies, so making friends with her is pretty important.  We'd vaguely planned to make the move in March.  Now we have to.  No pressure, sure.

Can't wait to see pictures of her and little Yazoo.  They're Imperials, by the way, meaning they're a piebald (like a pinto) black and white, as opposed to the more common browns. 

Horns, now there's a potentially "sticky" problem.  However I'm told that by handling them, the yaks learn to use them to be guided by, much like a bridle on a horse.  I'm a little scared that there could be a challenge between our puppy, Zen, and the yaks.  Going to have to spend the next couple months really working on Zen's obedience training.  Zen is a pit bull mix.  (We suspect there's some boxer and lab in there too.  We call him a North American Wigglebut.)  He's a great dog, sweet and gentle as heck, but with a very dominant personality, and thus far, watching the Dog Whisperer hasn't helped us make him behave as much as I'd like.  The neighbor downstairs doesn't help because she calls animal control the moment he makes the slightest noise.  I'm sure that'll come up in a blog real soon.

Back to horns, I honestly have no clue how well Yonkers is trained on that.  The folks we're buying from haven't really given us a lot of info regarding her.  Probably because we're not asking the right questions.  LOL!  A couple city-slickers starting our own farm.  I already know that a lot of our learning experiences are going to be based on the mistakes we make early in this.  Oh boy, won't that be fun?  They have about 8 yaks, and their herd bull is as tame as one could ask for.  Yonkers has never been used for milking, however.  That means I'm either going to have to teach her to be comfortable with being milked or I'm going to give up the idea of her as a milk cow and focus that intent on Yazoo and Yeti.Why in hell did we buy these yaks?  Shouldn't we have waited?  Probably.  But the price was good and it "felt" right.  I guess we'll just have to see.  To this point, taking leaps of faith has put us in the right direction.  The land was a complete leap.  We bought it sight unseen except for a few photos, a glimpse at its general location on Google Maps and a few talks with the realtor.  When we finally visited it last March we were astounded.  It was all that we'd hoped and more.  Dead gorgeous.  I should probably blog about our land.  I promise to do it soon.

And just Quantum and I meeting and falling in love…that was another leap of faith and will probably get blogged about soon.

Meanwhile I'm taking a leap!  Please gods, catch me!

Yaking it up!

If you'd told me that tomorrow morning I'd be the owner of three (or is that 2 1/2?) yaks, I'd have said you're crazy.

Yeah, I really do mean those huge horned and shaggy bovines that if anything you've probably only seen in a zoo before.

Not that our nefarious plan for creating a sustainable farm hasn't been in the works for a couple years now, but it's pretty amazing how this is all coming together.

Should I start at the beginning?

Around 2005, my hubby started getting antsy to leave Florida.  I couldn't disagree.  I moved out of New York to avoid the miserable wet winters.  For a while I'd been thrilled with the fact that I didn't have to shovel the humidity out of the driveway.  Now it was getting weary.  Florida summers are nothing short of miserable.  For all that we get a gorgeous winter akin to summers back home, in summer we're stuck with racing from the air-conditioned house to the air-conditioned car and back.  Anything else is purely horrible.

So one day we decided to move.  No clue how we'd do that or pay for it or whatever.  My honey wanted to be close to Four Corners.  That's the Native American "Grand Central" for the West, and since my husband is Chiricahua Apache on his dad's side, he wanted to go "home".  I remembered a family vacation to Colorado when I was seven.  Dad had been drawn there by an employment offer which he later rejected because he was afraid to leave familiar territory.  I'd been enthralled with the beauty of Colorado since that visit. 

Clear mountain streams where we fished up rainbow trout and fried them in cornmeal.  Daddy holding me over the edge of a cliff, and my view down a mountain chasm into a river.  It was in my mind, the most beautiful land on the face of the planet.

So I said, "Colorado" and we searched through the land available online.  Somewhere along there we came across this gorgeous piece of land.  No clue how we'd afford it, no clue on pretty much anything.  It just felt right.

And I licked it.

Licking it … might sound weird to some of you.  I'm amongst other stuff a metaphysician, have been since very young.    One of our "spells" was that if you licked something you wanted, it became yours.  I'll try to explain this at some later point I guess.  For now, just bear with me.

40 gorgeous acres in southern Colorado.  Pictures of wildflowers, a meadow, rock formations, a small stream.  I licked it and hoped that it would one day be mine.

Two years went by.  Then my Dad died in a horrible and weird sort of way.  I might go into it further in another post, but for now the basic info is that he had a heart attack and they found his body a week later.  His dog was still guarding him.

As a result of this, I now had a small amount of money.  Once I got over the general shock, we called the realtor about the land.  Maybe it was still available?  Dad had loved Colorado, and it felt like by purchasing the place we were honoring him.  Within a few months of Dad's death, we somehow owned it. 

So getting back to the Yaks…

Somewhere early in the process, years before we even owned the land, my husband turned to me and said, "How about yaks?"

My reaction was much like that of supposedly sane people worldwide.  "A yak?  Have you lost your freaking mind?"

Now when I was a small kid visiting the Bronx Zoo, the yak had for some reason been one of my favorite animals.  Even so I was pretty sure that hubby was nuts.

So I did some research.  Turns out that yaks are extremely docile.  They're also very efficient.  You can pasture 3 yaks on the amount of land that just one modern beef or milk cow would use.

Their benefits include milk, wool, and if you're willing to murder your critters, meat as well.  Two out of three anyhow.  Not a chance in hell I would use an animal for meat once I'd made friends with it.

We'd spent two or more years intermittently researching yaks.  We still weren't living on the land, but were getting closer to the process of moving. 

So last week we were talking about the yaks again and doing some more research.  There's not a huge amount of information on the web about yaks, but one of the yak breeders mentioned that she gave away a small pamphlet when you bought the yaks.  I wrote to see if I could purchase just the pamphlet.  She wrote back to say she had a couple yaks she was selling rather inexpensively.
   
Yonkers is a 9 year old cow.  Yazoo is her daughter, 8 months old.  On top of that Yonkers is pregnant.  They're going to board them for us till we move.  Can you believe?  I don't even live in Colorado yet, and I'm about to own three yaks!