Blake Mathys grew up on a central Ohio farm, going to exotic animal auctions with his father. They collected Scottish Highland cows, Jacob sheep and even peacocks. If it had fur or feathers, it was fair game.
“So when we moved back to Ohio about 12 years ago, I decided I wanted some livestock and maybe something a little unusual,” Mathys said. “I thought ‘Why not yaks?’”
Mathys is one of just a handful of farmers that raise the Himalayan animals in Ohio. The Tibetan bovine have made their home at Mathys’ Covered Bridge Yaks Farm in Union County, at OH Yaks in Warren County and at Bauman's NH Farm in Stark County, among others.
For many, the last time they’ve thought about yaks was learning the alphabet or in a crossword clue. But a few Ohio farmers, including Mathys, have made the hairy mountain creatures into a thriving hobby.
Ohio’s hairy Himalayans
Mathys has 12 of these cattle-like creatures on his farm. On an April afternoon, he showed me the barn, where a couple of shaggy calves were being weaned from their mothers. They greeted me not with a humdrum moo, but a prolonged grunt.
Mathys ushered a short six month-old yak into a head gate. The calf’s horns wiggled as Mathys patted its fluffy black and white fur.
“The [yak] we have here is called a trim yak,” Mathys explained. “It has the white on the forehead and then white on back feet. Because of those white on the back feet my daughters named this one Socks.”
Socks, like all yaks, will be smaller than your typical Angus cattle, even when he’s full grown, with a slight hump and a horse-like tail. He’s still getting used to people, so Mathys let me pet him as practice. Socks was headed to his new home at a Pennsylvania petting zoo later that week.
“They’re very soft,” Mathys said, burying his hand in Socks’ fluff.
The yak market
Selling the babies to petting zoos is just one of a few ways that Mathys is able to make some cash from his yaks. He also plans to collect yak fiber to sell for yarn soon, and he already sells their lean meat.
It’s a niche meat market, said Gregor Dike, the transitional board chair of the North American Yak Association. Still, Dike could yak all day about the animal’s potential as a red meat alternative.
“Its meat is high in protein, at like 22-23%. Really fat free and they have Omega-3 oils,” Dike said. “And they're hardy. They have a smaller or a lighter environmental footprint in terms of methane gas release, in terms of soil compaction and things like that.”
Despite all the ecological and health benefits of their meat, yaks are unlikely to catch on as a major agricultural product in the U.S. anytime soon. The United States Department of Agriculture doesn’t allow the import of yaks for farms. That means yaks’ population in North America is basically limited to what’s already here and what farmers like Mathys can breed.
“They're not going to compete with Angus,” he said. “There are 7,000 yak [in North America]. You probably slaughter 7,000 Angus a day for meat.”
Bonding with the bovine
Still, people like Mathys make it work, finding local grocers that will buy the meat. But, at his farm, it’s not about the profits.
“When we started this, raising yaks, we thought of it as a business, but we've come to realize it's mostly a hobby. It's just for fun. We can maybe make a little bit of money off the meat, but it's not going to be ever a major money-making operation,” Mathys said.
That’s the case for most yak farms in the U.S. Dike said only around three large herds harvest around 100 yak a year for commercial use of their meat. (One of which is run by internet celebrity makeup artist Jeffree Star in Wyoming.)
Most owners, like Mathys, form bonds with their yak herds and keep them around for their novelty. Dike, a yak owner himself, said the animals are special.
“They're amazing animals. They're very smart,” Dike said. “When I work with them, I think of them as teenagers who know exactly what I want. And then they make me work for it.”
Although far from the Himalayas, Mathys said his herd looks happy on his largely flat farm in central Ohio.
“When it's a nice cold snowy day in the middle of winter and you can look out here and see their hair blowing in the wind. That's a fun time. They look like they should be up in the mountains,” he said.
Now, Mathys is considering diversifying his herd. He wants to buy a water buffalo. He already has a cow, so it just makes sense to add yet another member of the bovine family.
Call him a ‘yak’ of all trades.
