THE highly-successful application of virtual fencing technology to keep cattle away from regenerative saplings in a CSIRO trial at Eden Valley has researchers confident the technology could be utilised in strip grazing and selective grazing management in the future.
In a 44-day trial at Eden Valley, funded by the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment in partnership with the Barossa Improved Grazing Group and local NRM boards, a herd of 20 cattle were kept from the area with regenerative saplings for 99.8 per cent of the time.
CSIRO senior research scientist Dana Campbell said the research team was surprised how quickly and calmly the cattle learnt the audio cues, and overall how effective the technology was for the duration of the trial.
"They were naive to the virtual fencing cues but started responding correctly to the audio cue - stopping or turning away when they heard it - within the first half-day," Dr Campbell said.
"They behaved like they had been virtually fenced all their lives.
"It was the first time we had used a virtual fence that was contoured around the exclusion area and the cattle had no problem learning what we thought may be complicated for them."
The eShepherd virtual fencing system from Agersens works by giving cattle audio cues from a neckband device when they approach a 'virtual' fence line drawn on an online interface. When cattle continue to move towards the fence line, an electrical pulse is administered.
The technology has the potential to allow people to control grazing livestock without using physical barriers, provide continuous monitoring of stock, improve livestock management and movement while reducing labour, and also exclude animals from environmentally sensitive areas and challenging terrain.
The Eden Valley trial was conducted in a 14-hectare wire-fenced paddock, with lucerne pasture for feed and a small area with 0.5-metre to 2.5m saplings. The virtual fence was shifted several times in the first two weeks and on day 15 it was contoured around the sapling area and remained that way until the trial finished.
At the trial's end, the feed within the protected area was twice that of the non-protected area, showing that cattle could be kept away from an environmentally-sensitive or dangerous area despite the large feed differential.
"We observed the animals to be very quick to learn the technology and stay out of the excluded area," she said.
"But the animals did not avoid the virtual fence line. They grazed close to it but were kept away from the regenerating saplings by responding to the audio cue.
"There was high variation between individuals of how often they kept going back to the fence line and how quickly they learnt to respond to the audio cue."
With further testing, Dr Campbell said the technology could be a "game-changer" for the industry.
"We see many benefits from being able to manage cattle in ways not previously possible by having the ability to erect temporary virtual fences whenever needed," she said.
NEW TRIALS TEST APPLICATION FOR GRAZING SYSTEMS
STRIP-GRAZING and selective grazing management is a potential application envisaged for virtual fencing technology, according to CSIRO senior research scientist Dana Campbell.
Dr Campbell said a GRDC-supported trial beginning in the coming weeks, in collaboration with Rick Llewellyn's team at CSIRO in SA, would test the technology for managing the grazing patterns of cattle across a cropping paddock.
If successful in its application, virtual fencing could allow for strip grazing while eliminating the time and labour needed to move fences and shift cattle.
Dr Campbell said in further research, the CSIRO team would be interested in investigating additional applications of the technology to understand the range of situations it could be applied in.
"We're interested in better understanding the differences between individual animals and learning what animal factors, like temperament, breed and dominance rank, may correspond with how they interact with and learn virtual fencing technology," she said.
During the Eden Valley trial, the majority of incursions into the exclusion zone were committed by three cattle, but the reason was likely down to the electrical pulse current being lower than expected in the pre-commercial prototype devices, rather than behavioural anomalies in those three animals.
