AUDIO: Greg Thoren – Illinois farmer
An Illinois farmer says virtual fencing has completely changed how he manages his beef cattle herd.
Greg Thoren, who raises around 250 head in Jo Daviess County in the northwestern part of the state, says the GPS-enabled technology uses app-controlled solar collars to define grazing boundaries, replacing physical fences.
“It would take me three to four hours a day to move cattle.” He says, “With virtual fencing, I can move all those cattle in about 15 to 20 minutes at the max, and I can do that any time of day.”
He tells Brownfield the ability to quickly, and even remotely, move cattle makes rotational grazing much simpler to incorporate.
“The quality of feed into them will be so much better and that should benefit their health and the meat quality in those animals.” He says, “And the plant health, the pasture health, we try to keep those cattle off of the pasture for at least 45, hopefully up to 60 days even, and everything is so tame and nice and it’s just unbelievable.”
Thoren says virtual fencing has also allowed him to graze cattle in areas that were previously unreachable, and it’s introduced the ability to selectively offer higher quality feeds to portions of the herd.
