Karl Prieth, born in 1952 in Kortsch, comes from a farming family and was already tending sheep on the farm on the slopes of the Sonnenberg at the age of twelve. After his father’s death in 1988, he took over his parents’ farm on the Schlipf farm in Kortsch. At that time, the farm produced grain and fruit, so the young man no longer had time to look after the sheep, which he later sold.

It was not until 2002, when his son Bernhard took over the farm after military service, that Karl began breeding his beloved sheep again and soon became president of the Kortsch sheep breeding association, which today has 26 members and 400 sheep.

Every year he accompanies the herds to the summer pasture in the Ötztal and has many curious stories to tell. Once, in autumn, on the way back to the Vinschgau, the weather deteriorated rapidly and visibility was zero. He, at the head of the herd, made slower and more uncertain progress until an old sheep overtook him, changed direction and led him to the Bellavista hut. The sheep had a cowbell that allowed the other sheep to follow him even though they couldn’t see him.

Another curious episode related to sheep takes us to Aquileia. Years ago, Karl suffered from an inexplicable allergy until one day, while visiting the mosaics on the floor of the basilica, the guide pointed out that in the biblical story, animals are divided into clean and unclean. Sheep (mentioned no less than 96 times in the Bible) were among the clean animals because they only ate herbs. Since then, Karl has only eaten herbs, vegetables and mutton and his allergy has disappeared!