No baby yak presented itself last night. Crooked Horn was a little more irritable than she normally is but we thought maybe she was just tired of being in the barn. There is not a lot of yak info floating around so most of ours comes from other yak-keepers in the Lower 48. Plus we have a really good yak book (we call it our yak Bible) and most of our "typical" information comes from that. The book tells us that yak calves are always born during the day. Average gestation for yak is about 240 to 270 days with the medium being 255. Bull calves reportedly take longer than heifer calves. Guess we'll see! I do know if Crooked Horn was a goat the kids would be born in the middle of the coldest night possible regardless of how long she had to wait to do that. We'll see...
On checking this morning, still no calf. Mom is breathing bit more labored and "looks" like she could be starting labor. One thing we DO know about yaks giving birth, if you see it starting you DO NOT have time to run for the camera. It happens that fast! I'm just glad she's safe in the barn with a lot of hay and a good amount of bedding. It's windy today and this will be much nicer.
We can't wait to see what she presents us with, a bull calf or a heifer. We have a name picked out already (yes, ALL OUR YAKS HAVE NAMES--EVEN THE ONES WE WILL EAT!) The Alaska Zoo just had a calf born around Valentines day, if it's a boy they'll name him Valentino and if a girl I think it was Valentina...a week or so later they STILL didn't know if it was male or female...must not be farmers at the zoo. Even if you can't examine the calf up close and personal it's pretty easy to watch and see how they pee. Anatomy is different on all those type of creatures; cattle, goats, sheep, horses, dogs, yaks...must not be any farmers working at the zoo.
I'll be making many trips to the barn today. Let's hope one of them proves exciting!
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