Spring Itch

The signs of spring can come in many ways:

New flower beds

New chicken barn for the baby chicks coming on May 10

Baby animals:

But if you're a yak, spring means one thing:

Shedding.

There's a lot of reasons to raise yaks.  They can be raised for meat, which is supposedly similiar to beef.  They can be raised for milk, if you are brave enough to climb under a yak to milk it.  Apparently, Tibet is full of brave people, as they use yak milk butter in butter tea.  The dung can be burned as fuel, if you're so inclined and far away from neighbors.  But here on Skirted Fleece, yaks are for fiber.  The fiber of a yak is a very short staple, around one inch or so.  It's also as soft and fine as cashmere and can be used for against-the-skin handknits.  When we got our yaks, we knew that they would be shedding sometime in the spring, but we didn't know exactly when. 

Apparently that time is right now.  Unfortunately, the best way to harvest yak fiber is to brush the yaks.  By this time next year, that should be no problem, as they will have had a year to get used to us and should have no issues being brushed.  Actually, we've been told that once they are familiar with their handlers, yaks enjoy being brushed.  But this year?  The last thing in the world Vorenus wants is someone trying to brush him.  Just petting his velvety nose comes off as an insult to his yak dignity. 

So we have incredibly cranky and itchy yaks, who are rubbing up against the barn, scratching themselves with their horns and grabbing chunks of beautiful wool in their mouths and spitting it all over the place.  Meanwhile, the local birds are just thrilled with yak shedding season, and around the property there are little bird nests lined with $30 an ounce yak fiber. 

Not exactly the way we envisioned this working.  While we gather up any wool chunks we see on the ground, we're thinking of trying to set up a "scratching post" with some plywood and brushes and see if that helps with the harvesting.  At the very least, it should help make them more comfortable. 

Octavia and Niobe

Gaia has claimed this corner of the bush as hers, and crams herself as far into it as possible. 

And then rolls around.  Not great for the bush, but it seems to be a lot of fun for Gaia.