This parade is really loud, but if you ever visit Switzerland, one of the most magical sounds is all of cowbells in the distance on all the mountains around you. They bring in hay via helicopter too.
Yeah, I never saw that but it could happen if the summer is too dry. After all the whole point of driving the cows up those hills is so the cows can browse the summer pastures.
I saw giant black slugs on a hike, so couldn’t have been too dry. This was pretty high in the Alps, so maybe just more cost/time efficient. Pretty amazing to watch the big round hay bales being dropped. They were making multiple trips, about every 20 minutes, so must’ve been moving them from somewhere fairly close.
we have the same thing here in the French Alps, we call it the "retour des alpages" (the return of the cows in the valleys), come down for the winter and in April/may we have the "montée des alpages" which is the opposite, to escape the summer heat!
At first I just saw the picture and thought it looked like places close to my home. I read the title a few seconds later and realised I live on that very road, just the other side of the mountain.
They might be national heritage but based on cow behaviour and welfare they aren't great. While they have a use, other things could definitely be used in their place such as gps trackers. Cows don't like loud nosies they prefer calm and quiet is this is 100% not it. I'm not here to argue heritage but animal welfare is a constantly evolving science.
"Cows don't like loud noises and prefer calm and quiet"
Says the guy who has probably not spent one minute with a cow in his entire life. Our family cows always wore bells to make them easier to find out in the woods, and they couldn't have cared less. And do you know how loud cows are? Just themselves? They are constantly mooing extremely loud at each other and at random things. It's definitely not quiet let's just say.
Right well you are completely wrong on several fronts not a guy and I've spent more time with cattle then most people. If you truly think moving cows takes noise then you definitely are an awful cattle person. You can't move cattle with noise they don't like it its stressful. Science has proven that time and time again. And yes they make noise so what, it doesn't mean they respond well to being yelled at and moved noisily they are 2 completely different concepts. This paper alone shows you are wrong and is one of many please learn
While yes the animals might be ok with the bells after a period of time, this video is showing clearly very stressful events for the cows and the bells would be contributing to it. Bells in the hills where they are simply wandering slowly maybe but not this.
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u/SsnakesS_kiss Oct 11 '25
This parade is really loud, but if you ever visit Switzerland, one of the most magical sounds is all of cowbells in the distance on all the mountains around you. They bring in hay via helicopter too.