HERDS

Having spent 6 years of my childhood on a small sheep farm in Missouri (my father being a "gentleman farmer", whose hobby was raising the black sheep that he had become interested in while in India during WW II) and, as a young adult, having a very small flock of goats in the foothills of northern California, as well as a life-long fascination with horses, you may well imagine that I am in heaven in Mongolia. And so it is. I am at least as interested in the herd animals as I am in the wild ones and spent hours watching them while we stayed at the nature reserve.The herds are mostly mixed, most families having a combination of animals. Those with mostly goats are the poorest and would much prefer to have more sheep and/or cows. As a former goat-herd, I find this outrageous and unfair! Goats don't get no respect! I think it's because they are so much smarter than sheep or cows and therefore more challenging for humans to manage.

But that's just a theory. They do produce cashmere, of course, but somehow the wool from sheep is a bigger cash crop. Maybe there is more wool per sheep than cashmere per goat?
More goats, here..I couldn't help myself. The goats and sheep and cows are all mixed colors: there do not seem to be specific breeds. 
We saw both yaks and camels in this area, which seemed odd to me: are yaks not from high mountain plateaus and camels from the desert? Which leads me to think that they must have been introduced by humans, perhaps recently, rather than being indigenous and having been domesticated here back in the mists of time. But, who knows? Sometimes I wish that our mode of travel (read budget) included hiring an interpreter..there is so much that we miss. 

But I liked being amongst these animals and their humans anyway.