🐃 Yak

The yak is the main dairy animal of the highlands of Tibet, the Himalayas and Mongolia. Over 90% of the world’s yaks live on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A female yak gives little milk: according to the FAO, 150 to 500 liters per lactation, about 1–1.5 liters a day on average. Lactation is seasonal: in summer on fresh pasture the yield is higher, and in winter it drops to a few liters a month, but the animal often is not dried off and continues to be milked into a second year.

Yak milk is thicker and richer than cow’s milk (usually 5–7% fat) and higher in protein and solids. There are no specialized dairy breeds: yaks are kept by small farms, and milk is often the herd’s most valuable product.

It is churned into butter for Tibetan tea and made into the dried cheese chhurpi, kurut and clarified butter. Proteins characteristic of yak were found in a bronze cauldron about 2,700 years old from Mongolia, one of the early pieces of evidence for the use of its milk.