Alpine cattle are his greatest passion, herding is his life's calling

 

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The alpine cattle are his greatest joy. They’ve taught him many things – including how to herd.

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The last morning mist drifts past the summit "Moarer Weißen", continuing over the high alpine meadows and the green, rocky peaks of the Lazzach Valley. Håns has been awake since half past five and has just finished breakfast. Like every morning, he laces up his mountain boots, ties on his blue apron, grabs his staff, and shoulders his backpack containing binoculars, a snack, and a water bottle. He climbs up the sunny side to the ridge, then descends again along the mountain crest.

In the evening, he’ll do it all over again, in the opposite direction. “A good herder must know where the cattle roam,” says Håns. This is his seventh summer on the mountain hut Moarerbergalm and his 30th as a herder. When he first tended alpine cattle at the age of twelve, he swore he’d never do it again – the weather had been terrible back then. But a herder is what he became.

 

He had always been attached to the cattle. He could recognize every calf – by the way it moved and, of course, by the sound of its bell. That hasn’t changed to this day. Once, when a farmer couldn’t find his cow in the fog, Håns listened into the distance and pointed out exactly where it was.

One hundred and thirty bells ring between the alpine pasture and the ridge – up and down, loud and soft, bright and deep. They belong to black-and-whites, Jerseys, Sprinzen, Simmentals, Blue Belgians, and the Grey cattle – his favorites. “But as a herder,” Håns adds, “you mustn’t show favoritism. They notice it right away.” When he goes out to the herd, he never counts them – he just knows if they're all there. In spring, when the animals arrive on the mountain pasture to stay until autumn, he notes down the names of the farmers, the number of calves and young cattle, and inspects each one from horn to hoof, because every animal has a distinctive feature.

In early summer, Håns fenced off the pasture with an electric barrier. In the past, before such fences existed, he would stay with the cattle all day because he could never be sure where they might wander. Even today, just looking through binoculars isn’t enough for him. “You have to go to the animals, at least once a day, to be sure they’re all right.” He learned that as a boy from his greatest role model—a shepherd in the Passeier Valley—and from the cows themselves. From them, he also knows that they always follow the grass—here today, there tomorrow—depending on the weather. And that you have to “be kind” to them, talk to them—that builds trust. “They know you well,” says Håns. “If you’re tense, they get nervous too.”

On the opposite side of the valley, a gray cow moos in his direction. “She says she can see me,” Håns remarks. He didn’t give her any salt yesterday. Once or twice a week, he spreads it out on stone slabs, and the cows lick it off. “The animals need it, just like we need salt in our soup.”

Lea gets restless. Håns lets her go so she can take a few steps on the leash. In a year, she’ll be driving the cattle down the mountain. Håns saw this morning that she has a similar temperament to her predecessor—she instinctively tried to herd chickens and calves. Lea will accompany him every day, in all kinds of weather. “A herding dog,” says Håns, “should never be afraid.” He points to a small wooden hut. “That’s where I always go when it rains.”

Once, he spent an entire afternoon there; the rain just wouldn’t stop. Sometimes he shelters under a rocky overhang. “Hail is the worst,” he says, “because it flattens the pasture, panics the animals, and they can crash through fences and tumble down the slope.” Luckily, that’s never happened on this alpine pasture. But two calves once slipped on a rock slab and broke a leg. He can immediately tell whether a calf is sure-footed or if it’s better to lead it to a gentler slope. One time, Håns sprained his own foot. He rubbed it with a good ointment and bandaged it. For a day or two, he could barely walk—but he still hobbled up to the pass, because: “The cattle need me.”