In a recent study by rangeland scientists with the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center at Burns, Ore., cattle were successfully restricted from burned rangeland with the use of virtual fencing.
After a range fire, cattle on public grazing lands in the western U.S. are usually kept off the burned area for two years. If only a portion of the area burned, the area can be fenced, so that the unburned area is able to be grazed. Traditional wire fencing may not be an option these days because of its high cost, or due to conflicts with wildlife management plans. Virtual fencing (VF) offers a more reasonable means of grazing the unburned area, while protecting the burned portion.
Virtual fencing is a system that enables livestock to be confined or moved without using fixed fences. VF uses collar-mounted GPS devices to contain animals within an area. The collars emit an audio tone as the animal approaches the virtual fence line. If the animal continues forward, an electrical pulse is applied. However, if the animal stops or turns around, it does not receive a pulse.
The team of researchers on this project included animal scientists from USDA and Oregon State University, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife specialist and a representative of Vence Corp., a New Zealand-based company.
A portion of the rangeland used in the experiment was burned in 2019. In June of 2020, the pastures were stocked with mature dry cows for a period of 14 days.
All the cows were fitted with VF collars. The GPS devices on the collars reported the location of each animal every five minutes. In three of the pastures, the collars were programed to create a virtual fence around the burned portion. Cows in the remaining pastures had electrical and auditory cues turned off, but the GPS devices reported the cow’s location at five-minute intervals throughout the study. This group was the controlled treatment.
Cows in the control treatment initially spent up to 40% of their time within the burned area and forage utilization was nearly 70%. Cows in the VF treatment spent about 4% of their time in the burned area on the first day and were recorded in the burn area only occasionally thereafter. Forage utilization in the burned area was less than 3%. This shows that VF technology can be used effectively to keep grazing animals off burned rangeland and allow plants to recover, while utilizing forage from unburned areas.
VF utilizes high technology equipment and does have a cost. The high price of wire fencing has given people in the livestock industry more reason to look for other ways to control animal movement. Scientists and company designers are finding ways to use this new technique more efficiently. Over time the technology will continue to evolve.
Some users have found that identifying the herd leaders and equipping only this smaller number of cattle with collars will reduce the overall cost. Many herd members will follow where the leaders go and do not need to be equipped with collars.
Virtual Fencing is improving as its use increases and as more research is done. This newer method of controlling livestock movement will become more widely used, as livestock managers learn about and adapt it to their own situations.
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Doug Warnock, retired from Washington State University Extension, lives on a ranch in the Touchet River Valley where he writes about and teaches grazing management. He can be contacted at dwarnockgreenerpastures@gmail.com.
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