The owners of the Iowa Yak Ranch are giving tours of their farm near Exira and will have two yaks in the Iowa State Fair’s Avenue of Breeds as they make the case that raising yaks — in Iowa — can be profitable.
“We raise yaks for food, fiber and fun,” Neal Meseck told Radio Iowa. He and his wife began raising yaks in late 2019 and they now have a herd of 20. Yaks are known for their distinctive long hair.
“They are not as large as beef cattle. They may appear that way due to the all the hair,” Meseck said. For example, a mature yak cow weighs about 650 pounds — that’s about half as large as a beef cow — and beef bulls are heavier than yak bulls, too. “They eat about a third of what a beef animal will eat, so it’s a little more economical to feed them as well,” Meseck said.
Meseck has been selling yak meat from other producers “just to get people interested in trying it,” but the first yak from his ranch is to be butchered in September, so he’ll be selling that meat soon. “Same lean and cholesterol content as turkey breast,” Meseck said, “but it has more of a beefy flavor to it.”
Yaks have three layers of hair. The outer layer grows up to a foot long and it’s coarse, like a horse’s mane. The inner layer is about two inches long and is soft, like cashmere, and yaks shed it once a year. “We’ve been collecting that for two years and I take it to Maxwell, Iowa to have it spun into yarn and then we have yarn for sale,” Meseck said. “I’ve got about 60 skeins of yard available as well and that is from from our own yaks.”
Yaks have long been used as pack animals at higher elevations in places like Tibet. Meseck said his yaks are perfectly comfortable in Iowa winters, but he’s providing his herd extra water and shade this time of year. An estimated 7000 yaks are being raised on ranches in the U.S. and Canada today.
Meseck said given the profit potential from the sale of yak meat and the hair the animals shed, raising yaks could be a good option for Iowa farmers. “We are, I think, positioned for growth in Iowa,” Meseck said. “It’s just a matter of getting the word out.”
Meseck and his wife hosted a group of RAGBRAI riders at their farm Monday night, shortly after a yak calf was born. The Iowa Yak Ranch is also one of the stops early next month on the “Evolution of the Heartland” tour in the Manning and Audubon areas.