VIRTUAL FENCING

Scott Oneto & Brian Allen, UC Cooperative Extension

(Excerpted from UCCE article) Read the full article here.

Recent advances in virtual fence (VF) technology are rapidly providing cost-effective opportunities to revolutionize grazing management practices and livestock production systems. Virtual fencing, an alternative technology to traditional physical fencing, enables land managers to control livestock distribution across extensive landscapes without the intensive labor, expense, and logistical efforts required by traditional fencing. Livestock are outfitted with GPS collars (Figure 1) that communicate with radio towers to create a virtual fence, and if livestock cross manager- defined virtual boundaries, the collars deliver audible (e.g., series of short, high-pitched sounds) and/or tactile stimuli (e.g., electrical pulse). Previous research has demonstrated that both cattle and sheep can quickly learn virtual fencing cues, including responding to audio cues alone. This innovative technology has also been shown to be effective for multiple natural resource goals in grazed rangelands across the Great Plains and Great Basin in the United States and grazed pastures of Australia.