Our Highlanders are put to work on different locations. On the one hand we have the seasonal workers grazing private property. On the other hand we have long-term employed animals working in nature reserves.

Conservation grazing as nature management is up and coming. Considering the advantages, it looks like an obvious choise to make. Not only Highlanders are known for their excellent work: sheep, Konik horses, ponies and other cattle are most known for their grazing skills.

For centuries grazing has been associated with stock breeding, since it was a part of agricultural production. In agricultural grazing the use of land will be optimized with fertilization as a common tool.

This kind of intensive grazing as a part of intensive stock breeding usually leads to manure surplus that can be damaging for the environment. Intensive grazing maintains an area as a habitat dominated by grasses and small shrubs, largely preventing ecological succession to forest and disturbing or even destroying ecological processes.

However, grazing can be organized in an ecological way. The essence of natural grazing is that livestock can graze all year round without interference or restrictions. They are for example free to roam the nature reserve and migrate to other areas and reproduction or mortality in the herd isn’t controlled by man. This does not mean that we leave our cattle high and dry. We keep monitoring our Coos. They will get their yearly vaccinations against IBR and Blue Tongue and their general health will be supervised.