The future of extensive sheep farming: Angel and Jennifer betting on GPS for sheep
With a great passion for the sector, Ángel and Jennifer are a young couple of livestock farmers who are dedicated to raising sheep, specifically the Churra breed, which has the Castilla y León designation of origin. Their story is full of enthusiasm and courage, two qualities that accompany them every day as they face the challenges of this trade.
They have worked tirelessly to manage their farm with the utmost dedication. Although life in the countryside is not always easy, especially because of the environmental conditions and bureaucratic challenges, the couple continues to forge ahead with the same passion and commitment as at the beginning. Every day allows them to learn and improve in their trade, and despite the difficulties, their love for livestock farming and the rural environment remains their greatest driving force.
How did your cattle breeding start, is it a family tradition or did you decide to start it yourself?
This livestock breeding started as a family project between three brothers. My partner’s father passed away and he (Ángel Hernando Villar) took over the livestock farming, his other two uncles helped him at the beginning, now retired due to retirement. We are in Fresneda de la Sierra Tirón, a charming little village in the Sierra de la Demanda.
Ángel is 28 years old and I am 25, we are young people with enthusiasm for the area, for the mountains and for the livelihood of being a livestock farmer. Although it is something that is becoming increasingly difficult due to predators and bureaucratic and administrative procedures.
I am from Burgos city and I came to live in the village with him in 2020, I have been living in Fresneda for four years now and I love my village. It doesn’t get any easier to live here, there are no shops, no fibre, no public transport, no doctors, no schools? Many days there is no coverage or the electricity goes out when there are storms. All this doesn’t make life easier for you to live here, nor does it make it easier to run your own business, even if it’s a livestock farm, because you have to do a lot of paperwork.
I have always liked animals and sheep, I always help him with them whenever I can. I particularly like to take photos and in such a beautiful place I get very good pictures. And now I am going to join him in the livestock farm. We have about 700 animals of the Churra breed with the Castilla y León denomination of origin and we sell suckling lamb.
Our livestock is extensive, they graze all year round at an altitude of 1,000 metres above sea level. They live permanently guarded by 6 mastiffs. They are brought down to the shed when there is heavy snowfall or when they are close to calving.
As farmers, what are the main challenges you face on a day-to-day basis in managing your farm?
I think the most difficult thing for the sector today is society.
It is good to study to be an engineer and live in a big city, but it is bad to study to be a livestock farmer and live in a village. Society lives for technology and devalues the most fundamental and primary things such as agriculture and livestock farming.
Nature can be harsh, and the presence of wolves in the area has an impact on livestock, affecting animals raised with dedication and care.
Being part of the future of livestock farming, how do you face this challenge and what vision do you have for the sector?
We are facing the future with a lot of uncertainty, I think that the sector is quite bad, that there are going to be very few livestock farmers left, especially sheep and goat farmers. I hope that the few of us who are left will be able to make a decent living from it.
What made you try digitanimal’s GPS sheep collars and what improvements have you noticed since you have been using them?
We have been using your GPS collars for sheep for a few years now and we have found them very useful. We started to use them because we found ourselves with a lot of work in the lambing areas in the grass and so on, and it allowed us to organise ourselves better, we have gained some peace of mind, we save petrol and we keep a better eye on them. In addition, due to the altitude and climate, many days we couldn’t find the sheep because of the fog, for example, or you have to go to do administrative work and you can control them.
Every evening we grouped them together to sleep together because of the predators we live with. If the cattle get scared and one of them runs off in opposite directions, the GPS alerts us and we try to get there as soon as possible, regardless of the time of night.
We have extensive livestock, but now we have 160 ewes lambing in the shed and we can’t spend so much time with the mountain ewes. So thanks to the collars we can see their location and situation so we can manage. Before, many days, you would go up into the mountains and with the fog you couldn’t see them and you can’t go everywhere by car, you also have to walk.
What we have noticed the most since we got them is that we can organise ourselves better, we don’t waste so much time looking for them and we use less fuel in the car.
Have you ever avoided the loss of an animal thanks to sheep GPS? If so, tell us about the situation.
We avoid losing animals by knowing where they are and being able to put them together every day. So in the middle of the day we go on the app to see where they are and if they are all together so we know when we have to go up earlier or we can go up a little later.
But on one particular occasion we noticed that ‘Sabi’ our little goat wasn’t moving from her spot and the GPS device for sheep was telling us that her temperature had risen. It was then that I went on foot to look for her, as there are no roads where she was, and I got to a big bush and found her.
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