It is already their second season on the Danube Island. And again this year the animal workers are particularly hard-working: The 70 Carniolan stone sheep that live in the northern part of the Danube Island have grazed 5.5 hectares of meadows since May.
The sheep are in the context of an EU project. Sheep grazing “contributes to increasing biodiversity and networking biotope areas,” says Vienna’s City Councilor Ulli Sima (SPÖ). “The sheep make an important contribution to the natural paradise of the Danube Island.”
The biodiversity on the Danube Island has already increased. Why? The sheep always leave plants when grazing. This creates meadow areas with longer or shorter plant stands. This also benefits endangered, strictly protected insect species such as butterflies, grasshoppers and grasshoppers.
The first monitoring in 2019 showed a strongly increased occurrence of these species compared to mechanically mown meadows.
Pure woman thing
The city of Vienna has only “leased” the sheep, they belong to the company “WUK bio.pflanzen” and are looked after by the shepherd of the company. While there were 50 sheep in 2019, the herd was increased to 70 animals this year.
There are also a number of young animals among the sheep that were born in winter. By the way: There are only female sheep on the island – from very young to older semesters.
The sheep are an old breed of farm animal. Carniolan stone sheep are robust, stress-tolerant and frugal. They are good feed utilizers, ideally suited for dry areas and, above all, also cope well with heat.
Clover and wild herbs
On the Danube Island, the sheep only eat what the meadows have to offer. They were particularly impressed by clover and wild herbs such as sage and yarrow.
After about a week, the mobile pasture fence is moved to another meadow area. In this way, large meadows are grazed piece by piece. The meadow areas are selected so that the sheep find shelter in the adjacent bushes on each pasture paddock.
For everyone who wants to visit the sheep: taking pictures is allowed, do not feed!
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