Main information:

Schönbusch

A special feature: Live lawn mowers in Schönbusch Palace Park

 

The Schönbusch landscape park is home to landscape custodians of a very special kind: since the 1980s cattle have been grazing on the meadows by the Little Village. Their existence is well known and they are a popular attraction for visitors with children. The historical tradition of keeping animals in Schönbusch has thus been resumed, and is in line with the intention of the park’s designers to create idyllic rural scenery within its boundaries.

The first animals to be introduced were a herd of Scottish highland cattle, which however shrank over the years as the individuals aged. Several animals of a breed that was originally from the western Alps were finally brought in as new companions for the last surviving highland cow.

 

Since the new cattle on the Little Village meadows had to be replaced anyway, this provided an opportunity for changing to breeds that used to be kept in Schönbusch. Originally the cattle from the former Nilkheim model farm belonging to the Mainz elector Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal grazed in Schönbusch’s Large Meadowed Valley. The purpose of the farm was to introduce local farmers to modern agricultural methods and convince them of their usefulness. Since the records show that Swiss cattle breeds were kept at Nilkheim farm, old breeds from Switzerland are now grazing again at Schönbusch, forming a link with the landscape park’s early beginnings.