Testing Virtual Fence Technology in an Upper Midwestern Goat Grazing Operation

View the project final report

Commodities

• Animals: goats

Practices

• Animal Production: grazing management, rangeland/pasture management
• Crop Production: silvopasture
• Sustainable Communities: urban/rural integration

A technology is available that can expand regenerative agriculture, help mitigate climate change, and increase food system resilience. The current tools lead to financial, physical, and quality of life sacrifices that significantly limit the biomimicry potential of the most natural management and movement of livestock. A virtual fence system can mimic herd movement as natural predators would with wildlife. A virtual boundary of any shape or size can be created on a map, allowing the user to customize the area in which the animals are contained. Graziers can give access to a new pasture from anywhere.

We tested key issues of labor, containment, and setting with virtual fence devices on 60 goats, one of the most challenging species from a containment perspective. During the course of the project there were five instances of fence breaches and of those, four were in portable net fencing paddocks. 

Some recent articles suggest that virtual fencing is only effective some of the time, but we did not find this to be accurate in our research. Virtual fencing is equally as effective as net fencing for containing goats. If an individual goat escapes from virtual fencing it is more likely to and able to return to the herd on its own. And importantly, when this occurs, usually the farmer does not have to take action and the situation is usually resolved in minutes.

When we analyzed all paddocks, virtual fencing required an average of 146.6 minutes less labor time per paddock than electronet fencing (p = 0.0002). This is not only for the initial set up but for all fencing related time logs while the goats were in the paddock. We found varying terrain and weather had no impact on efficacy of containment. 

When the technology is established it replaces physical fences, reduces labor, and leads to revolutionary advances in rotational grazing, targeted grazing, silvopasture, firebreaks, and improved soil retention and water quality on non-arable land.