Schachten

Until the 1950s, or later in many places, cattle, mainly young bulls, were kept during the summer months (June to September) in the highlands of the Bavarian Forest.

The herdsmen were permanently employed by the respective village and had a right to live with their families in a local herdsman's house, which they built themselves.

Hans Watzlik created a literary monument to another fabled forest herdsman from the Lusen area in his novel Der wilde Eisengrein.

In 1956, when the grazing of cattle in these highland clearings had ended, the Ministry of Forestry decided to reforest the Schachten areas.

In 2013, in uninterrupted tradition, 21 calves, cows and oxen of the three remaining rights holders, part-time farmers, moved from one Schachten to the next with their herdsman.