A University of Wisconsin researcher says virtual fencing is a great way to manage grazing for cows, goats, and sheep.
Stephanie Bowers is a dairy farmer and the University of Wisconsin’s regional dairy educator. She tells Brownfield virtual fencing uses cow collars and either satellites, cellular towers, base stations, or a combination of those, so farmers must do their homework to see which system would work on their farm. “There are five virtual fence vendors here in the United States and it depends upon which company you’re going to work with, and then also, there’s some variance between companies on which will actually work in your area whether you need a base station or cellular data.”
Bowers says some farmers using virtual fencing still have a perimeter fence at the property line, but she’s not convinced that it is necessary. “There is great debate about that, but if it can help you sleep better at night knowing there’s a peremeter fence around the edge, and around any sensitive areas, especially between the animals and say grandma’s pansy patch.”
Bowers says on average, it takes less than a week to train the cows to stay within a virtual boundary, and once that’s done, new animals introduced to the herd learn quickly from the other animals. “What we’ve noticed is there’s are a few animals that will continually test where the boundary is and tell all of their friends where it is, and they still stay in, though.”
Bowers says the livestock will hear a series of beeps when they are close to the boundary and get a small electrical stimulus when too close. She says research has proven these systems are very safe and humane for animals. “I grew up with the childhood trama of ‘the cows are out’ and we’d spend hours looking for them. Now if they get out, I just look at my phone and ope, they ran this way, and here they are.”
Bowers says along with improved animal health monitoring using the collars, research shows pasture-raised heifers produce more milk than those raised in confinement.
