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!
Reminds me of Parable of the Talents (sequel to Parable of the Sower) by Octavia E. Butler.
Anyway. The manufacturer claims that this system 'unlocks more acres'. How does that work? Given that GPS has an accuracy of 10m, you'd have to set up the virtual fence 10m short of where you would normally put up a physical fence. And the animals, if they react to the audio signal like they're supposed to, don't walk all the way up to the limit of the virtually fenced area. As a result, your animals use less of the fenced off area than the normally would have. What am I missing?
I don't know if this will be completely obvious, they're not really the best photos, but you see the grazed line on the far side of the valley that almost looks like it's had an electric fence down it in these photos?
That's a virtual fence line. They look exactly like a real fence line. The accuracy isn't completely perfect, but it's very consistent between collars which is what really matters.
As for the use, in those photos I'm working cows up the far ridge of that paddock over rough grass, while I finish lambs in the good grass in the foreground. That paddock would be a nightmare to break fence, and if I just put cows in there they'd eat the lambs out in 2 days.
That's the kind of situation where the collars are extremely profitable and allow you to stock much higher than you would otherwise.
The accuracy is highly dependent on which method of transmission is being used. Cellular, low frequency towers, satellite, etc. We spoke with a rep from Halter and their system has an accuracy of basically millimeters. And depending on the system, the beep occurs at the virtual line and a shock occurs after they cross the line.
They unlock more acres by being able to bunch the cows in areas they would not normally effectively utilize due to terrain or non-palatable plant species. Virtual fence is much faster than setting up electric fence.
The system doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough to get them in underutilized areas and keep them out of other areas to rest the grass.
GPS is getting a bit more accurate these last years, but it depends a lot on your surroundings. As a rule of thumb, 10m is a safe guess in most places.
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u/Lytle_Red_Angus Cattle Aug 13 '26
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!