Since yaks are high altitude, cold-weather animals, I am not certain they would be happy living in z7/8, especially if humid in the summer. I have heard that they do very badly when in the lowlands of India or China. Although musk-oxen are more in Siberia, Alaska and Canada, and aren't domesticated, as such, the animal husbandry might be similar. Since musk-oxen were re-introduced to Alaska since WII, there might be literature available in that area of the world.

That said, no, I don't know of any reference books. You could try Amazon.com, and after that, see if there is anything from a zoo-keepers perspective. I do think most anything you CAN find won't necessarily be in English. If you have or can make contacts in Kathmandu (try the Embassy?), there MIGHT be a yak-keeping treatise in Nepal - what language it would be in...?

I was more hopeful than anything else, thank you

The only thing I know about a YAK is that it is the animal my 11-yr old daughter always picks when we play the Animal Alphabet game. LOL I have to take a "pass." Not a lot of animals that I have ever been able to think of that begin with a "Y".

I keep trying to get her to accept "Yellow Bird"...but she won't have any part of it!

She always beats me...sigh!

Did you try Google? I found the International Yak Association http://www.iyak.org/Home/tabid/167/Default.aspx with the "Yaks in America" DVD.

Here's a large yak farm http://www.mcrobertsgamefarm.com/yak/Yak.htm

Here's a lising of yak facilities http://ranchlinks.com/Livestock_/Yaks/index.html

Try "yak farm" "yak ranch" "raising yaks" etc.
Yakkity-yak, don't talk back!

Thanks for the links, the first one especially was really useful. Unfortunately there seems to be nobody interested in keeping yak in Britain, I'll try to be the first ;-)

Hi Ravendonkey,

Yak's are great animals! Very entertaining and are pretty alert and have some sense about them. I currently have 16 animals and hope to get up to about 30.

Here is what I can tell you from my experience. I live in Virginia--low elevation (300' above sea level) and high humidity in the summers. So far the animals have done fine. I can tell they prefer the cooler weather as they are much more active. But when its 95-100 they lie around in the shade. Thats the short story.

Other things to consider. Hot humid weather breads insects and encourages worms. I have found that I need to worm them at least twice a year and have an active program to keep the flies to a minimum. The two are somewhat related as the first few years I used a wormer that wasn't friendly to the dung beatles and then had piles of manure that sat around for quite sometime. Now I changed the wormer and the dung beatles are happy to remove the manure very quickly. This helps keep the flies down and I also use fly predators-tiny wasp that attack the fly larvae.

I have noticed that the yaks don't shed out as quickly as some of the weather changes we get, and sometimes in the early spring they still have quite a coat on and it is getting rather warm. They still have done ok. With that said, you may want to consider a Yak cross or mix. The yak-cow mix is much hardier and puts on more weight and is less bothered by the heat and humidity. Trade off--I think they are a little dumber and not quite as friendly as the yaks. But they are great if you are raising them for meat. They tend to be a little bigger than the yaks.

The domesticated yaks are not the same as the wild yaks in Tibet. Those animals cannot tolerate lower elevations. The domestic yaks have all been crossed with cattle somewhere along the line and are smaller than the wild yak. Lots of information is on the IYAK web site mentioned earlier.

There is/was a free book available--about an inch thick on yaks. It used to mentioned on the iyak web site. They ran out of the first edition and quite to my surprise they sent me a copy a year or so later of the new edition.

Overall, I think it has been hard to find anyone that can tell you a whole lot. I have learned quite a bit from experience and have a lot more to learn. They have been enjoyable animals. I guess it depends on what you want to raise them for and if you want them to reproduce. I would say you always need multiple animals, as they are very herd oriented. They have gotten along with my ponies and a cow I had in the herd. I have had one pony gored twice, but it was her own fault, as she got too close to a mother and calf and she torments them at times.

If you have any questions, please let me know and I will be glad to try and answer them

Britan, eh? You should get some White Parks and preserve your heritage. (not much help if you're after fiber)
http://www.whitepark.org.uk/

Here is a link that might be useful: UK White Park Registry