A high-tech, no-fence solution is teaching cattle to stay home on the range, University of Alberta research has found.
In a study that tracked the movement of beef cattle over two grazing seasons using virtual fencing, cattle wearing the specialized GPS collars stayed within set boundaries more than 99 per cent of the time.
That's a big step forward for potentially helping cattle ranchers graze their herds and pastures more efficiently, says Edward Bork, a professor of rangeland ecology and management in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences and co-author of the study.
"Virtual fencing allows the rancher to control where, when and how often the animals graze, which gives tremendous flexibility to improve pasture and forage management."
The collars continuously track animal location and use auditory cues to warn livestock when they approach a programmed digital fence boundary. The collars deliver a mild electrical pulse if the cattle stray beyond the designated area.
The technology, which is just starting to emerge in Canada, is controlled through a cellphone app and can sharply reduce the need for costly fencing and labour needed to move herds to different grazing areas, Bork says. It also provides constant information on the location and status of individual animals.
"The collars can be programmed remotely, so you can move those animals almost instantaneously and you can do it from anywhere."
Frequently moving livestock around to feed on different rangelands, known as rotational grazing, is key to sustaining forage supply and grassland health, he adds. "Concentrating grazing in one area for short periods of time gives a longer recovery period for soil and plants."
For the two-year study, conducted at the U of A's Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch, the researchers measured the ability of cattle to initially learn and adapt to virtual fence technology, to see whether they'd then stay inside their unfenced pastures.
The training appeared to stick with the animals, the findings showed.
During year one, heifers that had never experienced the collar quickly caught on to its signals, learning within five to seven days to respect the collar and stay inside their virtual pasture boundaries. The following year, the same cows, this time with first calves at their sides, quickly remembered the collar signals; when they received audio cues, the animals turned away from virtual boundaries 49 out of 50 times.
Although the behaviour of individual animals varied widely, with some testing the boundaries more often than others, the technology proved consistently effective — even when cows were with their uncollared calves that had the freedom to roam.
If a calf wandered beyond the boundary and then bawled for its mother, the cow would go to the fence and bellow for its offspring, but wouldn't breach the boundary, Bork notes.
That rate of success could be "a game changer" for managing the movement of cattle on pasture, most of which in Canada are cow-calf stock, he adds. "In Alberta alone, there are 1.55 million breeding animals."
Along with that, the stimuli from the virtual fencing collars didn't appear to negatively affect livestock conception rates or weight gain. For example, pregnancy rates for the cows in the study were the same as or better than the average Alberta provincial benchmark of 86 per cent from 2018 to 2022.
"That safeguards the economic benefits for ranchers," Bork notes.
The technology is also relatively durable, he adds, noting that the battery- and solar-powered collars were shown in a previous study to function well in diverse weather conditions, including bitterly cold winters when daylight was limited.
Though the use of virtual fencing does rely on having adequate cellular connectivity in remote rural areas and still comes with relatively high costs for the collars, the fact that cattle can easily learn and be contained by the system adds to its potential for improving grazing management, Bork believes.
"Ultimately, this is the kind of innovative tool that could be revolutionary for the cattle industry."
The study's co-authors include U of A researchers Carolyn Fitzsimmons, Gleise Medeiros da Silva, master of science graduate Alexandra Harland, postdoctoral fellow Francisco Novais, research associate Maria Londono-Mendez, and John Church from Thompson Rivers University.
The research was funded by grants from the Alberta Beef Producers, Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Smart Agriculture and Food Digitization and Automation Challenge Program from Alberta Innovates and Results Driven Agricultural Research.
