The cow Romy celebrates a special birthday in Peiting

Created: 01/02/2022, 8:00 AM

From: Christoph Peters

The Kreuter farmer Volker Zahn with his Murnau-Werdenfelser cow Romy, who turned 20 in December and is still in excellent health.

© Peters

Romy is a real cattle.

And a very special one, according to her owner Dr.

Volker Zahn.

Because the lively Murnau-Werdenfelser cow on his farm in Peiting-Kreut has just turned 20, a proud age that hardly any of its conspecifics has reached these days.

Peiting

- Dr. Volker Zahn is already waiting when we knock on the door. The farmer wears a fabric mask adorned with flowers, which he does not take off when he steps outside. One thing is safe in these pandemic times, as a trained doctor, this is important to him, says Zahn, who ran a gynecological clinic in Straubing until his retirement, before he fulfilled his dream of a second life as a farmer when he bought the Schalhammerhof in the Kreut district of Peiting in 2005 . Admittedly with a special intention, because Zahn made it his mission on his Noah's Ark farm to save old domestic animal breeds from extinction. One of them is the Murnau-Werdenfelser cattle.

The 81-year-old puts on his hat, grabs his staff, then walks slowly across the snow-covered courtyard towards the pasture.

There, in a shelter, Romy is already waiting, eyeing the visitor curiously.

When Zahn opens the gate and enters the fenced-in area, the cow comes up to him immediately.

The 81-year-old pats her head lovingly, then reaches into his pocket and brings out a piece of stale bread that Romy eats immediately with relish.

Immortalized on canvas: As a picture, Romy hangs almost life-size in the house of the Zahn family.

© Peters

When Zahn started breeding Murnau-Werdenfels cattle in 2005, Romy was one of the first four cows.

She came to Kreut from a dairy farm in Seehausen.

“She was four years old then.” The animal immediately cast a spell over its new owner.

“She was friendly from the start, has such a calm disposition.

I took her to my heart straight away, ”says Zahn, while he lovingly strokes Romy through the thick fur.

At that time four cows and one bull has grown into a stately herd with 35 animals.

In her life, Romy gave birth to 14 calves, the last one in 2017. Despite her advanced age of 20 years, it cannot be ruled out that she will become pregnant again, says Zahn.

15 hectares of pasture are available

For him, Romy is living proof that there is another way apart from high-performance dairy farming, where animals of such a high age are rare.

"You normally only find something like this in sanctuaries."

In fact, it can be endured as a cow on the Noah's Ark farm.

15 hectares of pasture area, which extends as far as the Lech, offer enough food, only in winter, when the meadows are covered with snow, is there hay to eat.

It doesn't need concentrated feed.

"The animals are outside all year round, have a hierarchy and are very healthy," says Zahn.

Of course, race also plays an important role in this.

Murnau-Werdenfels cows are inherently very frugal and resilient.

Bred as a "three-purpose cattle", which served as a workhorse as well as a milk and meat supplier, the breed therefore enjoyed great popularity at the beginning of the 20th century.

Of course, the breed cannot keep up with today's high-performance cows, which are bred for milk and meat production, which almost led to their extinction.

Today the Free State supports keepers of these animals with an annual bonus, says Zahn - an important measure to promote the population and to maintain the gene pool.

Climate change is also forcing agriculture to rethink

The 81-year-old believes that this will be important for backcrossing in the future, when it comes to getting from more and more performance to longer lifetimes for the animals. Zahn would like that and more grazing - not only with a view to the well-being of the cows, but also to environmental protection. Because if they are kept sensibly, cows are not “climate killers”, he emphasizes and refers to new studies. Because of climate change, a rethink must also take place in agriculture, says Zahn, because this is of great importance.

Manfred Kinzelmann, on the other hand, is skeptical about the 81-year-old's ideas.

The fact that high-performance breeding will decline is wishful thinking, says the specialist cattle breeding advisor at the Department of Food, Agriculture and Forests.

Accordingly, keeping Murnau-Werdenfelser will remain a "lover thing".

He sees the future here in suckler cow husbandry, as Zahn does.

Or his son Hans.

The 32-year-old took over his father's farm two years ago and is continuing his life's work as a sideline.

That's lucky, says the 81-year-old.

Romy, that much is certain, should see it the same way.