“Remote Ranching” is a new and growing thing in rural America. Dr. Maria Silveira, director of research at the Noble Research Institute, talks about ranching via technology.

“Virtual fencing is one of the tools that you can use to manipulate your cow herd from your computer. So, it allows you to graze where and when you want to and reduces labor costs. Reduces the cost associated with a traditional fence. It makes it much easier to change the animals. Rotate the animals. So, the study that I present today compared a rotational system versus a continuous stocking system. So, yeah, we did all the manipulation, animal manipulation, from the computer. So that was easy.

Silveira said the technology worked better than she thought it would.

“To me, one of the biggest surprises was that, first, I wasn’t very positive the technology was going to work, and I was expecting to encounter all sorts of technical issues; animals getting stuck to plants or a shrub with the collar and losing a lot of collars, or the collar is malfunctioning because of the harsh environment where we’re testing. But it was very surprising to me to see that none of that happened.”

Each animal is equipped with a collar.

“They are battery-operated. They’re GPS-enabled. So, install the collars on the animals. There’s a training period, which is fast as well. It took us only four to five days to train the animals. So, the collar, what happens? You determine the area where you want the animals to graze. If they approach the area, they’ll have a sound cue. So, you tell them you’re not supposed to be there. If they advance further, they’ll get a shock stimulus. But fairly quickly, they learn to also say the sound, where the shock, so they learn not to do that.”

She said a system like this may most likely benefit producers who want to try or currently use rotational grazing systems.