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Yep. Only 1/3 as much. They mostly just forage and our 16 go through one large round bale of second cutting hay about once/week. A couple times /week we give them half a bag of either all stock or cracked corn, just as a treat. We keep their feed trough in the corral, where the squeeze chute is. Feeding them treats in there keeps them used to coming in and out of it. When we get them all in eating, we usually close all the gates and open the squeeze chute head gate. That way, the only way out is to walk through the chute.
They are a bit smaller than beef cattle, but not too much so. The bulls top out at 1200-1400 lbs. The cows reach about 600-900 lbs at maturity. They start out MUCH smaller, at 25 lbs-very low birthweight, but weather-resistant from the get-go.
Fencing-nothing special. We have 3-rail split-rail fencing, which was already here when we moved in. No electrical fencing required. The little babies often go next door to visit the neighbors (they can just step right through), but they won't go too far away from their mothers before they come back. We could easily fix that, but the neighbors actually enjoy it, and get upset if we don't let the babies come over for awhile in the morning. LOL! They sit out on their deck with their morning coffee and talk to the babies.
Yes, in Tibet (where they're from) the native people use them for just about everything, including milk. Yak do not produce much milk at all. Since they are so fuel efficient, their babies don't need much milk, either. The milk is incredibly rich, and curdles almost immediately after milking. It is extremely difficult to even get any milk out, so we US of A'ers don't even bother. The Sherpas use it for what they call Yak milk tea. It's kind of like a butter put on top of very strong tea. Yakkers who have visited Tibet say it tastes more like a salty broth than tea. They also use yak butter as a fuel source for their lamps, as well as making cheese.
Oopsy Daisy, you're right. The Goldens are the result of both parents having a recessive golden gene, and the offspring occasionally turns out mostly golden. Those are the ones that go for upwards of 7,000.00. Since we're using them solely for meat, we don't care what color they are.
We bought our first herd of 8 for roughly $900.00/yak (you get deals when you buy a whole herd), and our second 8 of 4 cows with babies for around 5,000.00 total (plus shipping). Most of our yak are Trims and Grey-Nose Blacks. We have five Imperials (solid black with black noses-they are worth a little more, even though we didn't have to pay more). Royals, which are black and white with pink noses, go for a pretty penny, too. We don't have any of those. Royals are used mostly for wool.
So they eat 1/3 as much as cattle? Are they smaller or just more feed efficient? Also, do they require any different fencing than regular cattle? I think I remember seeing a show on Discovery or something where native people would use the yaks for milk too....?
