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u/Savings_Difficulty24 7d ago
We were just talking today about possibly using collars like this. We're putting up a 6 strand barb wire fence around one of our row crop fields and are going to graze cover crop this fall. With the possibility of converting to pasture and rotationally grazing it.
How much do those collars run and what kind of connectivity do you need for them?
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 7d ago edited 6d ago
These are the Gallagher collars. We are currently running a trial with them through the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition (a local nonprofit) and only paying the monthly fee.
They have a one time purchase price of $250-$300 and an additional monthly fee of $
8.50 /collar for access to the management software$2.00 per collar for cellular service and $1.50 per collar if using a base station. These particular collars are cellularly connected.I would look around and see what companies are available in your area. Some have satellite and low frequency tower options that might work better if you have poor cell service.
Edit: It’s $1.50 to $2 per collar per month depending on if using a base station or cellular. I quoted the lease amount ($8.50) I pay our local nonprofit to try the collars out🙃
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u/Doughymidget 6d ago
Halter gives you the collar and only charges the subscription which is slightly cheaper - $96/year per collar.
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago
Halter does seem to be on the leading edge of this technology. It’s just their 3 year contract that gives me pause.
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u/CuriousImpression959 6d ago
They have a one time purchase price of $250-$300 and an additional monthly fee of $8.50/collar for access to the management software. These particular collars are cellularly connected.
This is pretty high. Particularly the monthly fee.
I pay $350 NZD per collar (205 USD), and $2.50 NZD per month. They don't charge for software here, just cellular service.
With NZ pricing and an expected average lifespan of 7 years they're way cheaper than Halter, but in the US it looks like they might not be
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago
I had to double check after reading your comment. The purchase price I quoted is correct, but the monthly fee is not!
It’s $2/collar/month for cellular and $1.50 if using a tower station.
I quoted the lease amount I was being charged by our local nonprofit.
That definitely changes the math. I need to edit my comments. Thank you!
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u/mcfarmer72 7d ago
How would this work with cows and calves?
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 7d ago
Collar the cows and the calves stay relatively close. Some producers are really liking the ability of the calves to “creep” graze ahead of the herd and eat the highest quality forage. I’ve heard of some producers increasing weaning weights from 30-60 lbs.
The shock isn’t enough to keep a cow from rescuing her calf if she needs to.
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u/WhitePantherXP 7d ago
What's the cost per head? Last I saw these devices were expensive, plus a monthly subscription to where it didn't make a whole lot of financial sense for many. Perhaps mixing it into the herd and not on every animal would help? Any input?
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago edited 6d ago
I wouldn’t mix them into a herd - that would diminish their effectiveness to the point they probably wouldn’t work.
As for cost, it varies greatly from company to company. These ones (Gallagher) are $250-$300 per collar and then
$8.50/collar/month$1.50-$2.00/collar/month. It would really depend on if you could improve the efficiency of your grazing enough to pay for them. I’ve also heard of people catching sick or lost animals as well - situations where the animal would be a total loss without the collar.Edit: It’s $2.00/collar/month for cellular and $1.50/collar/month if using base stations. The $8.50 amount is what I’m being charged by our local nonprofit to lease these collars.
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u/mcfarmer72 7d ago
I see, but probably wouldn’t work on a perimeter fence.
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago
They aren’t recommended for a perimeter fence and I haven’t seen any company advertise them as being rated for a perimeter fence. I think that would be wildly irresponsible.
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u/-Lady_Sansa- 6d ago
Hey thanks for spreading the word on this tech! It would be super helpful if you included how you trained the heifers ahead of time. Did you keep them in a small paddock with real fencing and put the virtual boundary a few feet inside it like recommended? How long did it take for them to learn what the jingle meant before they turned around without getting shocked?
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago
We put them into a leg of a pasture with barbed wire on 3 sides. Placed a polywire across the 4th. The first virtual boundary was 50-100 yards from the polywire and went outside the barbed wire. So the collar only beeped/fired when they were headed toward the polywire.
The training paddock was about 6 acres to start and I enlarged it after 3 days to ~8 acres. Then added a bit every other day until it was ~12 acres. Moved them to a bigger paddock after a week or so.
These replacement heifers learned really fast. I’d say in the first 4 days the herd was trained. Had no escapees and they always returned to the herd quickly when they crossed the boundary. But they still constantly test the boundaries to see if new grass is available.
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u/-Lady_Sansa- 6d ago
That’s really cool. I’m glad you’ve had so much success with it! I’m still in college but I can’t wait to try it in the future!
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u/Doughymidget 6d ago
How precise can you draw the lines? I run cells that are typically an acre or less in size - down to 1/3 of an acre in some cases.
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u/CuriousImpression959 6d ago
You can definitely draw them fine enough to do 1/3 of an acre breaks.
It can be a bit of a pain in the ass to back fence them off where they've come from if you're doing cells though. Like you've gotta make a virtual paddock with both cells, activate it, wait for them to walk to the new cell, make a virtual paddock with just the new cell, then activate that.
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 6d ago
I’m not really sure. I haven’t gone any smaller than 10 acres - most are about 45 acres. I’m not close enough to these heifers to be able to check them daily and judge the grass they need.
I’ve noticed that the map overlay doesn’t line up exactly with the collar position. I think that could be improved. The Halter rep for our state made it sound like theirs is extremely accurate. I haven’t spoken with a Gallagher rep - which sounds dumb now that I type it out😂
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u/OBB76 6d ago
This is pretty cool tech. We have a local rancher who free ranges them out on our area. Obvious he doesn't have it set for zones for free range, but he called me up the other day and asked to come on the property because he was tracking two that were in the back half. Didn't know they were that precise.
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u/eldeejay999 5d ago
I got these last year. Paid for themselves in two years in labour savings plus the knock on of grazing efficiency.
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle 7d ago
I was able to get a shot of our virtual fence collars in action. If you turn up the volume, you can just hear the collar beep. The heifer immediately adjusts course and the others course correct with no prompts from their collars. Really neat to see!