By Heather Mills, Agriculture Program Manager
The success of the virtual fence program has continued into the 2024 grazing season. Virtual fencing, a relatively new technology, allows ranchers to control livestock distribution in rangeland landscapes without physical fences. Livestock wear collars that communicate with GPS and reception towers to form a virtual fence set by the rancher or land manager. When the livestock
reach the limit of the virtual fence, they hear a series of beeps from the collar. If livestock continue their direction of travel beyond the boundaries of the virtual fence, they receive a benign shock. Cattle have demonstrated the ability to learn the virtual fencing cues, eventually responding to the audio cue alone.
This year, over 1000 cows are collared in Chaffee County; this is up from 500 cows last year. Of the initial 6 ranchers in the pilot program, 6 are still involved, and a 7th producer joined the program, and all have increased their use of the technology by collaring more of their livestock. In the spring of 2024, three additional base stations were deployed by helicopter to remote locations with the help of the USFS and local ranching community. These towers provided coverage in grazing areas where we found gaps in service to the collars. To date, 16 base stations are up and running within reach for our local ranching community.
The technology of virtual fencing is fascinating and can be complicated to understand if you aren’t exposed to how it actually works on the ground. Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a day with local ranchers, Kate and Brice Lewis, Owner/Operators of the Lewis Lazy L Ranch, who are in their third year using the virtual fence technology on their grazing permits in Leadville and Trout Creek Pass. We were joined by long-time Conservancy supporters, Denny Arter and Tim Martin, and received an in-person education of virtual fence in action.
The Lewis’ have a unique program with their cattle in that they use their grazing permits year round. Many other ranchers use their grazing permits in the warmer months when they need to put up hay on their home ranch pastures and then bring the cattle home before winter. The benefit of being able to see where their cattle are on the computer or mobile phone saves them a great deal of time and labor.
During our visit at the Lewis Lazy L Ranch, Brice opened his laptop and gave us a tutorial on some of the features he can use to track his cattle over thirty miles away. We could see a satellite view of the virtual fence boundary along with icons representing each collared cow. He showed us how he can track the movement of each single collared cow, change a fence boundary with a click of the mouse and choose an effective date. Brice explained his strategy for moving cattle through the grazing area in a similar way to how they would normally travel, however, he is able to fence them out of high impact areas such as riparian zones. He pointed out a handful of cow icons that weren’t where they were supposed to be, in the riparian zone, yet not very far from the rest of the herd.
We all climbed in a pick-up and drove to the Trout Creek grazing permit and as we came around a bend we saw a small handful of cows with their calves in the lush grass of the riparian area, the same cows we’d seen earlier in icon form on his laptop. For some cows, the temptation of the prime grazing is too tempting and they may not be as sensitive to the shock of the collar so will push through the virtual fence. Brice explained that when he sees the cows pushing close to or past the virtual fence boundaries, he knows it’s time to move them and will create a new section of virtual fence. One of the greatest benefits of the technology is that he could already see where these cows were before we drove up there.
As we drove through the allotment enjoying the scenery of tall pines and aspens leaves beginning to change, Brice explained how he recently secured a new neighboring permit which would increase his grazing land just north of his current Trout Creek pass permit. The State Land Board received bids and reviewed applicants for the permit which had been dormant for several years. After Brice took them to see the positive effects of virtual fence on the land, the wildlife habitat and his herd, he was granted the new permit. This exemplifies the positive results we’re seeing with the virtual fence program.
Kommentare