A young couple who love animals have followed their dream and become farmers - despite having no previous experience.
Jowan Bobin and Minnie Gregory aren't like most 19-year-olds, as instead of going to college or getting an apprenticeship, they decided to become farmers, as Cornwall Live reports.
Last year they started managing Castle Brea Farm, near Penzance, Cornwall, even though neither of them had worked in that industry before - although Jowan had thankfully completed a course on the subject.
The pair are mainly learning as they go but don't regret a thing, as Jowan said: "I can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else.”
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Neither Jowan or Minnie are from a farming background but for Jowan, looking after animals is something he has been doing since he was a child.
He said: "I was 13 when I took over my parent's patch of land and got my first animal.
"At first it was chickens. I used to sell eggs by the side of the road. Then I had one sheep. I have been building up my collection of animals since I guess. I have always wanted to look after animals."
Jowan, who did a farming course in Exeter prior to taking on the farm, started helping out in a local dairy as a 10-year-old and would go to the Royal Cornwall Show every year, talking to local farmers and breeders and looking at the animals.
"My mum is a dentist," Jowan added. "And my dad is an extreme sport coach so nothing to do with farming at all. But they have been so supportive."
Minnie’s only contact with farm animals came after meeting Jowan but to her own admission, she has no regrets.
"I was very much into my sports," she said. "I am a crossfit trainer. I don’t come from any farming background either. My mum is a nursery teacher and my dad has his own ice-cream van business but I met Jowan and he’s the one who got me into this.
"It can be hard at times. Especially on days when it rains all day. But it’s so rewarding too."
The young couple raise rare breed goats, sheep, and guinea pigs, alonside a rare breed owl, finches and doves.
They have a flock of Boreray Blackface or Hebridean Blackface, which is a breed of sheep originating on the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland - the rarest breed of sheep in the UK with only about 500 breeding ewes known to exist.
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Jowan continued: "We had 35 sheep last year but we sold quite a few as it became too much. Now we only have 16 rare breed Boreray sheep.
"Elvis is our golden Guernsey goat but we’re looking to get some more this year. We have some dairy goats and our two saddleback cross pietrain sows and our Oxford Sandy and Black pig. It’s probably the second rarest breed of pigs in the world.
"For us it’s not about having thousands of animals. It’s about focusing on fewer but rarer breed animals."
Jowan is a member of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, a conservation charity whose purpose is to ensure the continued existence and viability of Britain’s native farm animals.
He added: "For us, it’s about conservation grazing and managing the land in a more sustainable and natural way."
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