Foundations of Virtual Fencing: Strategies for Collar Management

Virtual fence (VF) systems hold great promise on extensive rangelands when livestock are properly trained to respond to the auditory and electrical cues generated from the collar (Mayer et al., 2024). However, the potential benefits are difficult to achieve without effort to properly manage VF collars from start to finish. This may involve labeling VF collars with a unique number, pairing the unique collar number with the individual animal number or ID in the VF system’s software, monitoring each collar, grouping collars in the VF software, locating and retrieving dropped collars, and responsibly disposing of collars at the end of their lifecycle. As a result, collar management is likely a daily task. When properly managed, VF collars allow land managers to remotely monitor livestock in near-real time and potentially gain insights into animal behavior and welfare.