Final report for FW23-411
Project Information
Bare ground is increasing in New Mexico at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country according to NRCS. By herding cattle in small areas, progressive ranchers have observed a very interesting sequence of events: Cattle eat the good grasses and the not-so-good as well, the overall forage consumption takes longer than it used to, and the overall harvest amount is also increased. With these effects combined, ranchers have found that their ranges produce more grass than what they need year round, so they can have longer resting periods. With this restored cycle, plants grow stronger and increase ground cover and the biodiversity of the community is also enhanced via moisture holding capacity and solar energy and carbon dioxide transformation into organic matter, which allows water to percolate down to subsoil, and cleanses the atmosphere.
However, understanding the costs and benefits of emerging tools and technologies such as virtual fencing across entire ranches is needed to increase adoption of adaptive management that lead to economic, animal welfare, and ecological benefits. In this project, we demonstrated virtual fencing in a drought-stricken region for three years and compared existing management and animal condition records with the values after using virtual fencing. Additionally, we leveraged open source, satellite-based data on plant community and bare ground to relate changes to healthy soil. Finally, we shared results through on-ranch trainings and to wider audiences through a webinar and podcast to reduce barriers to implementation of rotational grazing. Our ultimate educational goal was to engage enough neighboring producers to share land or leases by using this novel technology and thus build stronger ties among rural food system communities.
Research Objectives
Overall, Taiban Creek Ranch wishes to be a demonstration of how virtual fencing can be used in a drought-stricken region to balance livelihood, animal welfare, and ecological resilience. I wish to promote ecological restoration that, ultimately, will benefit humanity in general, together with all other living organism on the planet. As the ecology recovers from continuous grazing, the grasslands will be able to produce more animal products per acre, at lower cost; that will increase the incomes of the ranchers, and include them in economic progress for their communities, regions and several industries that grow together with the ranching business. Not talking only about monetary benefits, but the access to a cleaner atmosphere, since CO2 has been removed from the air and buried into the soil as roots and living organisms; more and cleaner water, since the rain is captured and infiltrated into deep soil reservoirs, instead of running off and eroding the soils; and an increase of high-quality animal protein products that otherwise are not available for people around the world.
- Compare the costs of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure (permanent and electric fencing) and emerging virtual fencing technologies. Costs include accounting for time spent with grazing planning, maintaining infrastructure, equipment and supplies and will use a "before-after" design.
- Compare the benefits to livestock behavior and health of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure and emerging virtual fencing technologies. Some metrics, including sale weight and body condition score at different times of year, will use a "before-after" design. Others, including distances traveled, rest periods, etc. will be compared using data from the virtual fencing receivers after virtual fencing is put in place and animals become accustomed to it.
- Compare the benefits to plant community (using functional groups) and in turn soil health of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure and emerging virtual fencing technologies. We will leverage open source, satellite- and model-based data repositories such as rangelands.app to compare plant functional diversity (annual vs. perennial forb and grass, shrub, bare ground, etc.) and biomass both through time (1980s - present) and compared to neighboring ranches.
Education Objectives
Ultimately, we want to transform regenerative agriculture into a more community-based experience, with knowledge sharing and support flowing among ranchers. From that groundwork, we can imagine multiple ranchers sharing a larger plot of land and track and contain their herds precisely. Virtual fencing could thus change the way land is stewarded amongst different groups of people, and open source technology like programs in OpenTEAM can help us track and share that information. For this project, however, specific objectives include:
- Demonstrate set-up and initial set-backs and solutions of virtual fencing technology to neighboring ranchers to reduce anxiety of the initial drop in production during transition from one system to another.
- Demonstrate maintenance and benefits of virtual fencing technology to neighboring ranchers to incentivize adoption and make time for community discussion of a plan for sharing resources at a local or regional scale.
- Share results of the research (objectives 1-3) with a wider audience through webinar and podcast interviews by partnering with a non-profit dedicated to regenerative agriculture.
Spring 2023 - I will set up and one tower up in spring 2023 and begin training cattle with the collars.
October 2023 - First in-field workshop - share experiences with the initial transition, from set-up to implementation.
October 2024 - Sharing first year management activities and animal and soil health responses at a webinar at REGENERATE
October 2025 - Second in-field workshop to highlight the steps to further optimize the use of the virtual fencing and the cost-benefit analysis after the initial set-up period.
April 2026. Share final results.
Cooperators
- - Technical Advisor
- (Researcher)
Research
Virtual fences have become one more tool that a rancher can employ to fulfill their financial, ecological, and quality of life aims. There are several options for virtual fencing entering the market, and what most of them have in common is the use of a GPS device attached to a collar, which allows the rancher to know where each animal is at any time. Together with the GPS, each collar has a signal receiver that will trigger a sound and/or an electric impulse when the GPS gets close to a virtual line that the rancher is able to create as he pleases.
As with any other fence, the way to evaluate a virtual fence is according to its capacity to contain cattle, in relation to its cost and the labor it demands. What advantages can a virtual fence show against barbed wire and electric fences? The ease of “building” them, moving them, fencing inaccessible areas, or areas where other kinds of fencing are not allowed or not possible to build. Will it hold the cattle as good as a barbed wire fence? Maybe not, but since they are going to be built on top of the existing net of fences, the worse case scenario will be that some cattle might get out of the virtual fence, but they will be held by the current fences; since they have to go to the same drinker than the rest of the herd, they will gather themselves with the rest of the herd. The next question we need to ask is: If the virtual fence holds 70 or 80 or 90% of the herd, will the management of the herd fulfill the purposes of the rancher? That should be the guideline to evaluate this technology. On the other hand, it must be understood that the evaluation of the ecological impact resulting from the use of the virtual fence will be a reflection of the ranchers' work, knowledge, and use of the fence, more than the fence itself.
Objective 1. Compare the costs of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure (permanent and electric fencing) and emerging virtual fencing technologies.
I have grazing and management records for the duration of time owning and managing Taiban Creek Ranch. I will continue to track my family’s time, use of machinery such as trucks off-road vehicles, use of horses, use of tools for fence repair etc. These costs will be combined to compare the costs of current rotational grazing to the costs of the tower purchase and continued rental of the collars. I will also track emerging costs such as additional power or connectivity needs.
We hypothesize that after the first year, which is likely to require additional effort to set-up the system and train the animals, the amount of time (moving animals between pastures) and resources (tools and materials to fix fences) will decrease. With the virtual fence technology, the rancher gets it easier and more enjoyable, since he is able to design, build and move the fences to manage his cattle, from the comfort and the versatility of a phone, ipad or computer, almost from anywhere.
We know that there were different companies providing similar services with virtual fencing collars. We decided to work with Vence, because is the one whose collars are controlled by a main tower, which is in continuous communication with our phone or computer, while other companies offer collars that need to be in cell phone service area all the time to have communication with phone or computer. By mapping our ranch, Vence personnel instructed us for the best place in the ranch to set the tower, where every collar would be under control every time. On August 2023, with the help and encouragement of Western Sare Grant, we got the tower, and put it together. Once the tower was set on, the cattle got their collars that same month.
We got the immediate benefit of knowing where our cattle were.
In order to train the cows to the collars, we had to have them in a little pasture where you can expose them to virtual fences on top of permanent fences; so we expected to have them in the pasture next to the highway where we have plenty of electric fences. But fall came and grass had not fully recovered in that pasture, so we sent them to the “Triangle” pasture, a 2000 acres pasture, and even though we built virtual fences on top of the perimetral fence, the exposure was not enough for them to get properly trained. A few months later, by April 2024, the little stainless-steel cables of the clamps they sent the collars with started breaking and collars started falling.
It took until the next gathering of the cattle that those collars were put on again with the right kind of clamps, but by then replacement heifers were added to the herd, and the company didn’t have enough collars inventory, so it was useless to put collars on some animals but not on all of them.
All these inconveniences delayed the full herd to get proper collars until September 2024, and started using them. After the proper training of the cattle, we started getting the expected benefits, and those big pastures have been used in a better way.
It is interesting that you can know which cow is every icon on the screen; and by the way: those cows that seem to be our of the pasture, really are not; when you enlarge the screen you find out that it is only the icon that seems to be outside, because the real cow is close to the fence, and the software draws the icon that way.
Objective 2. Compare the benefits to livestock behavior and health of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure and emerging virtual fencing technologies.
Some metrics, including sale weight and body condition score at different times of year, will use a "before-after" design and compare existing records to those that will be collected through the next three years after adding the virtual fencing. Others metrics will include distances traveled, rest periods, etc. will be compared using data from the virtual fencing receivers after virtual fencing is put in place and animals become accustomed to it, so we will compare year 1 with years 2 and 3.
I hypothesize that animals will have a higher sale weight and better body condition score after the virtual fencing. I will be able to compare animals that are lame and not walking as much as others or animals that are sick and require more rest and will be able to remove them from the herd, and thus we expect that we will have more consistent animal behavior in years 2 and 3 as we use data to manage both the grazing but also stocking.
Objective 3. Compare the benefits to plant community (using functional groups) and in turn soil health of rotational grazing using traditional infrastructure and emerging virtual fencing technologies.
I will leverage open source, satellite- and model-based data repositories such as rangelands.app to compare plant functional diversity (annual vs. perennial forb and grass, shrub, bare ground, etc.) and biomass both through time (1980s - present) and compared to neighboring ranches. I have used this app previously and already noticed changes to bare ground from before to after I took over stewardship of this ranch. Rangelands.app also includes precipitation data, an important covariate for understanding vegetation performance over a given time period. The use of this response is a major reason for the study to extend three years so that we can compare through time and over a wide extent.
We hypothesize that virtual fencing will improve soil health and plant performance because the management aligns with Healthy Soil Principles. Tracking bare ground across an entire ranch is an important metric for understanding risk of wind and water erosion as well as gauging how well management is aligned with the Healthy Soil Principle “keep the ground covered.” Additionally, tracking annual vs. perennial vegetation and relative abundance of different functional groups (forb/gras vs. shrub vs. tree) all help understand how management is aligned with additional Healthy Soil Principles “maintain a living root” and “maximize biodiversity.” Finally, moving animals in real time based on ambient conditions can "minimize disturbance" - for example, keeping animals off of an area of high clay content during a rainy day can keep the soil protected and the plant performance optimal.
This project began at the end of 2021; it has been good 5 years project. Challenging, encouraging and a lot of learning. Not very many Ranchers were using collars for virtual fencing 5 years ago, and now there are a lot of ranchers using this technology, and even the NRCS is promoting them and funding them, and somehow this project had something to do with that change.
Why has the use of this technology grown so fast? I think it is because it enables ranchers to manage their cattle and their pastures in an affordable, labor reduced, and versatile way that gets ranching into a new era that a few years ago could not be even imagined. Having access to cattle location via a phone or a computer, designing smaller pastures out of big pastures, being able to move cattle from one portion of the pasture to the next with minimum stress, are just some of the many advantages.
Before going any further, though, I need to explain that the use of collars for virtual fencing, just as any other technology, doesn’t mean that automatically the rancher is doing regenerative ranching. Virtual fencing is just a new technology, just as electric fences once were, and its regenerative success has more to do with the management principles and guidelines than it has to do with the technology itself. Technologies are oriented to increase the control the rancher has over the places and the periods cattle graze, but there is very few they can do if the management of use and rest of pastures is poor.
There are several ways virtual fencing should be compared to other kinds of fencing. I would like to start by comparing prices and operation costs: Virtual Fences vs Physical Fences.
Initial Costs.
Building a mile of 5 tread barbed wire with T-Posts every 16 ft, including H braces takes about
330 T-Posts @ $ 5.50 1,815
20 Rolls of wire @ $70.00 1,400
4 H braces @ $50.00 200
LABOR 5,200
TOTAL 8,650
Building 1 mile of permanent electric fence takes about
2 H braces @ $20.00 40.00
1.3 Rolls of wire @ $184.00 239.00
270 5ft Rebars @ $1.80 486.00
11 Pk Insulators @ $10.00 110.00
1 Kit Solar Panel and Charger 700.00
Labor 200.00
TOTAL 1,775.00
Starting 100 cows on virtual Fence (with VENCE) takes:
1 Control Tower @ 12,000.00 12,000
100 Leased Collars @ 40.00 400
100 Batteries @ 10.00 100
Labor 500
TOTAL 13,000
It is very easy to see that for the price of 1.5 miles of barbed wire or 8 miles of permanent electric fence, a rancher can have a 100 head herd under a virtual fence program, which allows him to build as many fences as he can possibly imagine, and try different grazing patterns every season.
Comparing different fences by the operative requirements or advantages, It can be said that operating barbed wire fences requires almost no expenses, other than repairs when cattle or wildlife damage them. Barbed wire fences hold the cattle better than any other fence. But due to the high price of building it, very few rotations can be done using barbed wire fences as the main tool.
Operating electric fence requires a little more daily inspection and repair, since a lot of different factors can damage the insulation: cattle, wildlife, wind and weeds. It is easy for some cows to get used to breaking electric fences, and when that happens, the fence is broken for the rest of the herd. Even though they are more affordable than barbed wire fences, they are still not as handy to do an ultra-intensive rotational grazing system without the extra expense of portable fences and the heavy labor of moving those portable fences very often.
Operating Virtual Fences requires more computer knowledge than actual field work; in a few minutes virtual fences can be programmed from home. Virtual Fences could be the least effective of the fences, but if a cow goes through it, the rest of the cattle will still have a fence holding them; if a cow goes through it, and has to drink water in the same place than the rest of the herd, it will be allowed to get back to the herd without getting any shock, the fence will be there for it next time it tries to go through it again, with no need of any repair. Virtual fences showed to be effective in holding cattle in “medium” size pastures: Small pastures (3-4 acres for 150-200 cows herd) as required for ultra-intensive grazing cannot be accomplished with virtual fences; but holding the herd within a 100 acres is possible, and that is enough to change the perspective for big pastures (let’s say 1000-2000 acres) that potentially can hold the cattle for 3 or 4 months (even in a rotational program), pastures can be easy subdivided with virtual fences in ways impossible with other kind of fence, and do a rational harvesting of several grasses, provoke enough animal impact, and start the rest period of those same acres, while the rest of the pasture is still being used.
When you consider all things together, Virtual Fences are a very accessible and efficient tool for holding cattle at different portions of a property, in a very easy way, with very little amount of work that can be done even from a remote location, away from the property, so a rotational grazing system can be done and adapted to special circumstances every season, something that is hardly accomplished with any other kind of fence.
A different perspective of comparing virtual fences against physical fences would be through the point of view of Cattle management and behavior. When releasing cattle into big pastures where the only fence holding them is the perimetral barbed wire fence, cattle spread through the whole pasture, looking for the best grasses. After a period of time, depending on the size of the herd and the extension of the pasture, the cattle eat most of the good grasses, and start using regular grasses. Days, weeks or months later, they have gone through all the good and regular grasses, and all is left in the pasture are the poor grasses. By this time, leaving the cattle in that pasture will damage their performance, since they will be loosing body condition lacking nutrients. When cattle are moved out of the pasture, only the poor grasses were left long enough to produce seed at full capacity, and they were not abused as the good and regular were, but were left with most of their root system and radicular reserves intact. As years and seasons go on, the poor grasses take over the space the good and regular grasses were covering, because the later were abused and weakened, and the first were given the best.
As a thumb rule, when you put cattle in a pasture they will spend one third of the time they are calculated to stay in that pasture consuming good grasses; second third of the time consuming regular grasses, and by the third, the only available forage resource will be the bad grasses, weeds and shrubs. With Electric fences, smaller paddocks can be made out of a big barbed wired pasture. If cattle were supposed to stay in one big pasture for three months, it would be a month consuming good grasses, a month on regular, and a month (if not taken out before) loosing condition because nutrients were not enough out of bad grasses. If electric fences divide that big pasture in smaller pastures where cattle is supposed to stay for three weeks, instead of three months, the third week loosing condition is more affordable for the rancher than a whole month harming cattle performance. As paddocks get smaller and the time the cattle are kept in them gets shorter, the process of going through good, regular and bad grasses is speeded up, so poor grasses start becoming part of the regular diet of the cattle without harming their performance, since they are mixed all together instead of separated.
Portable electric fences make it possible to keep cattle in very small paddocks (a few acres each) for short period of time (less than a day), so the times they use the good, the regular and the bad grasses seem to be all at the same time. All grasses are harvested the same way, and then all of them are left alone to rest the same way. Good, regular and bad grasses are given the same treatment, and they can all thrive under the same conditions. Cattle get very used to see humans that give them access to fresh pasture every time, and they become very gentle.
Using virtual fences will not give the ability to keep the cattle as packed in a small paddock as the portable fences can allow, but comparing the amount of work required to move the portable fences (at least 40 min per move, some times 2 or maybe 3 or 4 times a day), to change a virtual fence from a computer, at the comfort of home, while still encouraging the cattle to harvest all the available forages in a pasture in 3 – 10 days, is still a very good advantage that makes it more attractive for old fashion ranchers to get interested in shifting from continuous (or long term) grazing to intensive rotational programs that would enhance ecological restoration in their pastures.
Could be said that with virtual fences the daily contact with humans is lost, but the management of grassland with virtual fences in small paddocks still require the daily inspection of the grass consumption, and cattle performance, so the rancher should use part of the free time the virtual fences have released for him to go an walk through the herd, and have them used to see him in a daily basis.
At Taiban creek ranch, we still have close to one quarter of our land under an intensive, electric fences (permanent and portable) based grazing system where we try to run our cattle most of the rainy season. When the grass is growing at full capacity (moisture, sunlight and temperature at their best), cattle stay in a 3-5 acres paddock for 8-12 hours. Next day, that intensively harvested paddock begins a rest period that can be as long as 12-18 months. While keeping the cattle in this quarter of the ranch during the growing season, remaining three quarters of the property enjoy full rest during that period, and grow as much grass as possible for the slow grow and the dormant seasons. This portion of the ranch is divided into three big pastures: two of them once had electric fences on them as well, but due to a change in the drinkers’ locations, the electric fences no longer fit the design for the new drinkers, so they became out of service. We had two options: lift them up and re-set them under a new design for the new drinkers, or lift them up and substitute them with virtual fences; and the latter is what we did. Two out of the three big pastures now are used rotationally without physical fences, and the use period now is longer and the consumption more even without harming cattle performance, and the third one rests for more than 16 months.
Thanks to this kind of management and the result out of it, because of the tools we are using, people have been interested in coming and seeing what is going on. We need to remember that we as a family started running this ranch in 2012; by then, 80% of the property was bare ground, and the coverage of the other 20% was mainly tobosa grass and mesquite bushes. For more than 13 years, and even with 9 out of them being drought, the pastures have shown very interesting progress in covering bare ground, increase in bio-diversity, productivity and profitability.
Results of the regenerative ranching we have been doing since 2013:
The Rangeland.ap shows how the coverage within the property was almost as good in 2020, after 3 years of severe drought (parts of the ranch got 8in in those three years combined, when the average rain is supposed to be 12 in a year), than it was in 2015, when the yearly rain was 20 in, while the country in neighbors’ ranches showed poor coverage in 2020.
Research outcomes
As I explained earlier: a) Virtual fence itself is not synonymous of good management or regenerative ranching at all; it is only a tool, and the way it is used determines if it is for good or for bad results. And b) We started doing regenerative ranching in this place since 2013, 10 years before the collar came as a tool; we just incorporated them into an ongoing management, and they came to make work easier and funnier.
So, the ranch has become an erosion free ranch, we have seen a lot of bare ground get covered with very interesting biodiversity, which is attractive to wildlife. The collars on the cows, even though they are not fully responsible for it, have been a tool incorporated into the management that made it easier to accomplish. The cattle productivity, the wellbeing of the cattle, and the weight of the cattle we sell, have all been kept or improved with the whole management, where the collars have been incorporated and made it easier. The prices for the cattle we sell obey tendencies foreign to the ranch management; they have increased by twice, but it is due to the markets, and the management of the ranch, or the collars have not been responsible for that.
Education and Outreach
Participation summary:
So far, we have just talked about the technology to other producers, we have shown them the location of our cattle through the pastures as shown on our phone displays, and told them about the benefits of the technology in cattle management.
We planned on doing a field day in April 2024, inviting producers from our region, and other people through Quivira Coalition friends, in order to make public the progress of the project, the benefits it has brought us, the challenges we have been through, and be helpful for those who might be interested in using this technology.
April workshop was cancelled due to bad weather conditions: Too dry, not much to show to possible participants.
October 24, 2024, a webinar was offered Nationwide. Jorge Ramirez spent more than 2 hours explaining the repercussions of a good grazing system and a bad grazing system, on the ecology of the pasture, on the productivity of the herd, and on the profitability of the whole operation; also shared good grazing techniques, and how the virtual fences might be included as a tool to enhance those purposes
September 2025 Dr Tim Steffens form West Texas A&M University brought his ag college students for a field trip to see all the grazing techniques we use in the ranch (virtual fencing included), erosion control, regenerating ranching.
December 2025 Dr Tim Steffens form West Texas A&M University brought his master's degree students for a field trip to see all the grazing techniques we use in the ranch (virtual fencing included), erosion control, regenerating ranching.
October 24, 2024, a webinar was offered Nationwide. Jorge Ramirez spent more than 2 hours explaining the repercussions of a good grazing system and a bad grazing system, on the ecology of the pasture, on the productivity of the herd, and on the profitability of the whole operation; also shared good grazing techniques, and how the virtual fences might be included as a tool to enhance those purposes
Dr Tim Steffens from the Range Management Department of the West Texas A&M University has brought his college and masters students to see our management; This is one of the groups Dr. Steffens brough to the ranch.
Education and Outreach Outcomes
I´ve seen young people is ways more interested in new technologies than older people. This technology is more attractive for young people who like seeing stuff in a display in their hands, and manage it from there. Aiming young producers with this technology will be a better use of our time and resources than using them for convincing older producers
Cattle Control, grazing efficiency, ecological improvement of pastures