Shepherdess - a childhood dream

What does Claudia's dream job look like - with her sheep, her herding dogs & nature?!

For many people, the child­hood exper­i­ence often comes first when choos­ing a career. But some­times the love of nature is just there. That's the case with Claudia. At the age of 18, she gets her first pet - a male Lab­rador. Along­side her train­ing as a tax clerk, she real­izes her dream and works for a shep­herd after office hours. Most import­antly, her first sheep exper­i­ence enthuses her. Being out in nature with them and the herd­ing dogs in all weath­ers – Claudia knows this is my dream job.

What is the attraction of sheep?

Sheep are not only very useful anim­als in the cycle of biod­iversity. Fur­ther­more, they build a close rela­tion­ship with their shep­herds. Claudia exper­i­ences this in her appren­tice­ship and is hooked. In her early twen­ties she starts her own breed­ing with ten sheep.

"The East Prus­si­an Skudde is a very old and robust live­stock breed. My sheep live on pas­ture all year round. Even the lambs are out­side from birth. Unfor­tu­nately, this breed is threatened with extinc­tion. In the 1940s, very few anim­als sur­vived in a zoo. They fell into obli­vi­on at that time because they are very small and frugal. There­fore, they were not of interest for the meat industry. At that time sheep wool was impor­ted from Aus­tralia. With my breed­ing I make an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the pre­ser­va­tion of this breed."

What is the most beautiful season with the sheep?

For Claudia, that's the lamb­ing season. From the begin­ning of April to June, she lives in a cara­van dir­ectly on the meadow. To be with her sheep day and night is import­ant to her. Sleep is scarce during this time, because it hap­pens that the ewes do not accept their lambs. Then Claudia raises them with the bottle. One year she has eight 'bottle-fed kids’. Surely it is an exhaust­ing time, but the bond that devel­ops during the first months is a won­der­ful reward. Even today, the ‘bottle-fed’ lambs are the first to rush up to Claudia when she enters the pas­ture.

Claudia's sheep and their personalities

"Every sheep gets a name from me after birth. I star­ted with names of sweets like Twix, Oreo, Snick­ers, Rafaello and Campino. Now I also use bever­age names like Ginger Ale, Bitter Lemon, Ramazotti or Ovalt­ine."

As varied as the names is the appear­ance of this breed of sheep. There are phen­o­typ­ic wool col­or­a­tions in white, brown, beige, gray, black, pied or even tri-color. Some­times the wool is curly or even smooth. Some female East Prus­si­an Skudds have horns others do not. They are a spe­cial breed and always enthuse Claudia.

The start as a shepherdess - what does it take?

Claudia works her way up to her flock and her sheep farm. As a tax clerk she first cre­ates the fin­an­cial basis and starts with her 10 anim­als on a leased meadow. sheep by sheep she buys in addi­tion suit­able East Prus­si­an Skud­den and now owns almost 100 sheep.  Sup­port comes from her hus­band and family, who also build the mobile stable house for her sick anim­als.

"The ful­filling work with my anim­als also means many sleep­less nights and no vaca­tion. There is no sub­sti­tute for my work assign­ment. Every day my sheep have to be looked after in the vari­ous pas­tures. If there is an emer­gency, I might have to make a dif­fi­cult decision. I cannot and do not want to hand over this respons­ib­il­ity. At the end of winter after many hours of work out­side in the dark and cold, yes - my energy is down. But then comes lamb­ing season and everything is for­got­ten again."

What are the training courses for a shepherdess?

Since her first exper­i­ence as a trial shep­herd­ess, Claudia achieves vari­ous qual­i­fic­a­tions and train­ings. There is no stand­ing still for her. With her train­ing course as a shear­er, she also takes care of her sheep wool in late spring selling the beau­ti­ful fleeces to people who appre­ci­ate the qual­it­ies of this nat­ur­al mater­i­al. Skilled artis­ans create Vegan felted skins or card the raw wool, than spin and knit the wool into unique cloth­ing items

"The sheep shear­ing week is always super exhaust­ing. But the sheep need this so that their wool doesn't get matted. A buyer once knit­ted me a pair of gloves. Even in snow and sub-zero tem­per­at­ures, I always have warm hands when work­ing in the pas­tures."

With sheep, there are also some symp­toms of ill­ness that need to be treated imme­di­ately. There­fore, Claudia always has a small emer­gency kit in the car to dir­ectly treat injur­ies, colic, eye infec­tions or wounds.

What is the relationship between sheep, shepherdess and herding dog?

Sheep breed­ing and shep­herd­ing also include herd­ing dogs. Claudia searches and finds her 'Work­ing Kel­pies'. Through her edu­ca­tion as a dog train­er and her intens­ive work with the dogs, she is now a sought-after train­er. So other herd­ing dogs learn from her how to watch and herd a flock of sheep and not chase passing bicyc­lists and cars. In her self-made 'herd­ing courses' the dogs try out the basics they have learned from Claudia. Watch­ing how well Claudia and her Phoebe steer the sheep in the meadow is very impress­ive. Claudia just whis­pers a word and Phoebe imme­di­ately brings back the little run­away lamb to the flock.

"The sheep shear­ing week is always super exhaust­ing. But the sheep need this so that their wool doesn't get matted. A buyer once knit­ted me a pair of gloves. Even in snow and sub-zero tem­per­at­ures, I always have warm hands when work­ing in the pas­tures."

With sheep, there are also some symp­toms of ill­ness that need to be treated imme­di­ately. There­fore, Claudia always has a small emer­gency kit in the car to dir­ectly treat injur­ies, colic, eye infec­tions or wounds.

What is the relationship between sheep, shepherdess and herding dog?

Sheep breed­ing and shep­herd­ing also include herd­ing dogs. Claudia searches and finds her 'Work­ing Kel­pies'. Through her edu­ca­tion as a dog train­er and her intens­ive work with the dogs, she is now a sought-after train­er. So other herd­ing dogs learn from her how to watch and herd a flock of sheep and not chase passing bicyc­lists and cars. In her self-made 'herd­ing courses' the dogs try out the basics they have learned from Claudia. Watch­ing how well Claudia and her Phoebe steer the sheep in the meadow is very impress­ive. Claudia just whis­pers a word and Phoebe imme­di­ately brings back the little run­away lamb to the flock.

"When I hear people yelling with their dogs, I always have to smile. Dogs hear much better than humans. Unfor­tu­nately, some owners don't even have this basic know­ledge. So many dogs run free without basic obed­i­ence. There­fore, I am not sur­prised that often strange dogs jump into my staked sheep mead­ows. But the tragedy is that sheep are skit­tish. They are often chased by these dogs in such a way that they run full of panic into the light elec­tric mesh fence. As a result, they some­times get caught in the mesh with their horns or legs. If I am not called imme­di­ately by the dog owners or author­it­ies, I than have to retrieve a dead sheep from the des­troyed fence mesh the next day. Of course, this hurts me a lot emo­tion­ally and it is also a heavy loss for me fin­an­cially."

How can I earn money with the sheep and shepherding?

Claudia is known as a breed­er. How­ever, she only sells her sheep to people who see her anim­als as an asset. She looks at how much space is avail­able and what her sheep can do. Then she puts togeth­er a har­mo­ni­ous group know­ing her anim­als and their pecu­li­ar­it­ies. Since Septem­ber, five of her sheep have found a new home on a 2000 sqaure meter lawn of a res­id­en­tial house in nearby Bel­gi­um. In addi­tion, she offers sheep spon­sor­ships through a non-profit Nature organ­isa­tion. Over the year Claudia shares her life with her sheep includ­ing a coffee & cake day on her farm - her spe­cial ‘thank you’ to the spon­sors. Fur­ther­more, she also offers work­shops for kinder­garten and school groups so that young chil­dren get to know her anim­als and her work.

What does the grazing by the sheep mean?

Sheep carry the seeds of many plants, they not only fer­til­ize the soil, but also loosen it. Unfor­tu­nately, this land­scape main­ten­ance is not fin­an­cially sup­por­ted by the German gov­ern­ment. The pas­ture owners hire Claudia to have their sheep 'mow' the meadow areas and fer­til­ize them as well. Often enough, how­ever, there is no pay­ment for Claudia's work. She has to drive her sheep with her live­stock trail­er to the pas­tures. Then, after 1-2 weeks she moves them on to the next meadow. There she again sets up her port­able solar panels for the pro­tect­ive elec­tric fence. Every day she drives to the dif­fer­ent pas­tures and checks her sheep, the fence, the shel­ters, salt tubs and water troughs.

How is private shepherding supported in Germany?

The agri­cul­ture depart­ment regards shep­herd­ing and the pre­ser­va­tion of a dying breed of live­stock as a private pleas­ure, a 'hobby'. But there are many reg­u­la­tions to follow up in Ger­many. Offi­cial papers have to be filled in when selling live­stock. And of course, stud books have to be man­aged in a com­pli­ant way and newly changed reg­u­la­tions have to be stud­ies. Unfor­tu­nately, Claudia's county does not offer a bonus for each new dam, like in other German states.

So why is Claudia still so enthusiastic about her strenuous work?

Cer­tainly, there is a unique bond between her and her anim­als which Claudia exper­i­ences every day. In the cycle of nature, she observ­ers what her sheep con­trib­ute to the needed nature con­ser­va­tion. If you also like to exper­i­ence Phoebe at work with 'Twix', 'Cor­netto' or 'Ginger Ale', then take on a sheep spon­sor­ship. As part of the spon­sor com­munity, Claudia will show you all facets of her shep­herd­ing. Maybe then you'll under­stand why Claudia doesn't need a vaca­tion and what it means to be out in nature with your anim­als.

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Name: Claudia Laus­berg

She is: Shep­ard­ess, Sheep breed­er, sheep shear­er, Pro­fes­sion­al dog train­er

To be found: between the city of Aachen and Cologne, close to the Neath­er­lands and Bel­gi­um, 

She likes: her morn­ing routine "I let the dogs out and then I take a mug of coffee to check on my sheep"

"I don't have a favor­ite travel des­tin­a­tion, but I would love to go to Aus­tralia and exper­i­ence farm life there."

She admires: "My grand­moth­er! She was always in a good mood and very empath­et­ic. She always took care of her chil­dren and grand­chil­dren - no matter in what life situ­ations or times of crisis."

Her WIASOLA tip: "Women can do everything; you just have to believe in your­self and just go for it!"

Her 5 favor­ite songs:

  •  Cas­sandra Steen ‘Stadt’
  • Sarah Conner ‚Wie schön du bist‘
  • Sarah Conner ‚Bonnie & Clyde‘
  • Xavier Naidoo  ‚Was wir alleine nicht schaf­fen‘
  • SOPHIA  ‚Schmet­ter­ling‘ 

To be found under:

Claudia Laus­berg
Schäferei
Sheep Farm Come By
Hauptstrasse,  52146 Würselen 

Do you want to sign up for a sheep spon­ser­ship?

Here you find a film about Claudia and other shep­ards 

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