Posted: Thursday, March 07, 2024
Author: Joette Schalla, ALC, Ranch Broker | Licensed in CO
If you take a drive through the modern-day New England countryside, you will still find stone walls lining the edges of historic farm properties. These charming walls were very labor-intensive to build, as stones were removed from farm fields out of necessity; this created an opportunity to repurpose those stones for the containment of livestock and to mark property boundaries. Wood, which was also plentiful, was incorporated into building corrals, gates, barns, and fences. These common methods of improving farms worked well in areas with abundant natural resources.
As people moved west and settled in new areas, they needed a new way to contain livestock and define property boundaries, leading to the first barbed wire patent, issued in 1867. Lucien Smith of Ohio is credited for the design of steel wire fencing with pointed barbs. The design, made of multiple wire strands, was intended to deter animals from pushing through fences. Over time, more options for wire fencing emerged. Smooth wire fencing is a design without barbs and is preferred by many horse owners. Mesh or woven-style wire fencing is excellent for containing all sizes of animals. They work well in small confinement areas to keep the animals from crawling through. Barbed wire made fencing larger areas more practical and efficient than using the resources of the past. By the 1870s, barbed wire was being promoted in Texas, a place where farmers wanted to see better containment and control of animals to keep them off their farmlands, and ranchers were hesitant to give up the open range they had been utilizing. The era of open ranges and free grazing came to an end in the 1890s.
Advancements in fencing continued with the invention of electric wire fencing in the 1930s. Electric fencing is commonly used for temporary fences around farm fields, CRP midterm management, or even small plots of land that someone would like to graze to utilize the forage that has grown but doesn't intend to graze continuously. Using an electric fence is common practice for intensive grazing plans as well. They are easy to move, can be shaped uniquely without the heavy-duty braces needed in multiple-strand wire fencing, and are efficient to set up. Another popular use is to line the inside of other types of fences with a single electric wire to further deter animals from pushing on or crowding the fence. An electric fence can be very effective if everything is working properly and the animals respect the fencing. Dry conditions and even overly wet conditions can cause grounding issues that prevent the fence from working efficiently. Also, some animals never learn to respond in a desirable manner. Breaking your animals into an electric fence can take a little time for them to understand the electrified wire and respond correctly. I have owned cows that would take the shock and push under the wire quickly without caring. Some animals aren't meant to be contained by a strand or two of lightweight wire and small posts. For smaller areas of confinement, or areas a property owner might prefer to be more visually appealing, pipe fencing became very popular, and the more modern-day option of vinyl and PVC fencing can be found across the country enhancing entrances, driveways, yards, and the corrals around barns. Pipe and premade steel fencing panels are very efficient for corrals and high-pressure working areas.
Modern technology and logic from the existing fencing practices mentioned above have helped create an entirely new version of livestock containment. Enter virtual fencing, a technology that works from a GPS collar system. In June of 2022, I attended an NRCS field day in Eagle County, Colorado. A portion of the event was focused on adaptive grazing management and the role virtual fencing can play in forage management. I learned a lot about the system that day and found it to be a fascinating concept. The idea was that each cow in a herd would be fitted with a chain collar, which supports a box with a GPS unit that keeps track of temperature, movement patterns, and the speed of the animals' travel. The version I saw at the field day included two plastic chain links at the top of the collar that could easily break away if the chain were caught on an obstacle while an animal was wearing the collar. When an animal moves towards an area that is not permissible, the technology in the box will produce a sound to alert the animal that they are reaching its boundary, and if the animal continues towards the boundary, it will receive an electric shock. It is similar to the invisible fences that became popular for dog owners. These sounds and shocks are used to train the animals to turn back and stay within the approved grazing area. Pat Luark, the rancher owner who had been testing the units in Eagle County, said his cows learned the meaning of the sounds and shocks with little difficulty as long as the terrain allowed them to flee the stimulus in the correct direction without trouble. He spoke about an instance where the cattle would be walking down a fairly steep hill when they came to the boundary. When they began receiving the beeps and then shocks, it was a difficult slope to turn back up, so many of the cattle would push through the deterring sounds and shocks and head downhill out of their boundary because it was the path of least resistance. A positive design feature is that the reinforcement stimulus only works when cattle are inside the designated boundary limits. If they should leave the boundary and wander back in, the system does not sound or shock them upon reentry to the designated areas. He said that handling bulls with the collars was more challenging than the cows because they were less responsive. I believe that some of the cattle I own that weren't detoured by the electric fence would also not be stopped by the stimulus that the virtual fencing produces, but maybe, over time, they would begin to comply. Mr. Luark explained that the GPS collars made tracking the bulls that wouldn't stay within the established boundaries easy, providing another benefit of the collars.
Computer software used to operate the program is accessible in an app, which cattlemen use from their computer or smartphone. From the app, anything entered will be processed and stored in a server like the cloud, and then the boundaries laid out in the app are transmitted to towers that control the collars. The control collars are used for data collection and stimuli implementation.
During the field day, the key speaker noted that the towers could transmit up to 30 miles if the terrain were accommodating. Rough terrain can make it challenging to have an unimpeded signal, so the transmission distances are variable. The control collars also have an offline capability that allows them to store pertinent information still even when they are out of range of the towers. The cost of a tower is about $10,000. A solar panel and battery storage power these towers. An assembled tower is small enough to be transported in a pickup bed, making it relatively easy to move to new areas. The control collars were also battery-powered, and they said, on average, the batteries would need to be changed every six months. The collars are leased on an annual basis. The average cost of a collar was $37 paid annually, and the batteries cost about $10 each. I recently learned from another rancher in Huerfano County that losing collars in areas with dense scrub oak was somewhat common, and locating the animals who lost their collars became a challenge. There are positives and negatives to all technology. Currently, the virtual fencing for cattle is being tested with producers with 500 head of cattle or more. The NRCS offers a Conservation Innovation Grant, allowing ranchers to test virtual fencing on large ranch operations in some areas at no cost. The technology should work on other species, but is currently focused on managing cattle with this technology.
If producers are able to manage their pastures with virtual fencing, they will save money on material and labor costs to install expensive and time-consuming stretches of fencing. In return, the lack of physical fences creates a much more friendly landscape for wildlife. The wildlife can move freely through migration corridors with less likelihood of entanglement in fencing. It is very common for ranchers to build fences with wildlife in mind, but virtual fencing will help alleviate that struggle with proper fencing heights.
Eliminating the need for fencing can also be visually pleasing for a landowner. The natural landscape of a property can be enjoyed with fewer manmade fences. Virtual fencing can benefit public land areas where many cattle producers lease the grazing rights. Removing the need for fencing helps create a place for the public to enjoy the recreational aspects of BLM, state-owned land, or the National Forest, eliminating the rancher's concern about the public leaving gates open for the cattle to escape and potentially being harmed by traffic on roadways, or lost.
Using virtual fencing to contain livestock is an efficient way to keep them out of riparian zones and wildlife habitats classified as sensitive. Creating these excluded areas with fencing can be very expensive with traditional wire fencing due to the large number of braces that need to be installed at every bend in the fence, but the technology behind virtual fencing makes it simple to map out specific areas that you don't want the animals traveling through, even if those areas have many turns in the boundary lines.
I see huge benefits in using virtual fencing to fence government lease land. Sometimes, the terrain of the public lands is rough, with massive canyons or steep mountain terrain. I feel that a $10,000 transmission tower used to establish your pastures and manage your rotational grazing plans is much more cost-effective than building traditional wire fencing. I am currently paying $12,000-$14,000 per mile for a 4-strand barbed wire fence built on open grasslands, and the cost of fencing rough country goes up a great deal. I also see benefits in fencing the perimeter of deeded ground and using virtual fencing to create your rotational grazing plan. As you study your range and decide the best plan for grazing, virtual fencing can help you adjust your pastures quickly and exclude sensitive areas easily. If your collars fail and the cattle leave the planned grazing areas, perimeter fencing would still be around the producer's land to ensure the cattle don't get lost on a neighboring property.
There is no perfect solution to fencing, but knowing about all the methods people have used for ages and the latest innovative technology in fencing will allow a landowner to choose the best option for their desired outcome. If a rancher wants to enhance the natural beauty of their land, is comfortable with technology, and prefers to minimize soil disruption with fence construction, virtual fencing is a great option to consider for their operation.
