It works well for cows to be enclosed by a virtual fence, which the farmer can draw in or change with a few button presses in an app. This is shown by a new study from SLU and the research institute RISE. If the cows go outside the fence, they first get a sound signal, and if they don’t back away, they get a shock
– The shocks from these collars are significantly weaker than from a normal electric fence, about 10 percent. It should be felt, but it should not be painful for them, says Lotten Wahlund, who is an agronomist and does research at SLU and RISE.
– I think they understand very quickly that they should back off when they get an audio signal. I think they are very easy to learn, says Sören Carlsson, farmer at Österby farm, who participates in the project.
Difficult to fence in important natural baits
Ordinary fences are expensive to put up and in some places, it is extra difficult. Often it is about natural areas that are now growing again.
– It is very labor-intensive and costly to set up physical fences in these often rocky areas, with many trees and bushes. Being able to set a virtual border with a simple button press on the mobile phone could revolutionize animal husbandry, says Jenny Jewert, who is an agricultural expert at the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF.
Saving rare plants
If there are nice orchids growing in the middle of the garden, it is also easy to calm them down. Or if you want the cows to graze in one place in the pasture first.
– That you let part of the pasture rest and recover, while they are in another place grazing. Then they can come back where they have been. That kind of thing becomes very easy when you can change the fence to whether you should go out and put up some wire with just a touch of your phone, explains Sören Carlsson.
But perhaps the biggest advantage is that the cows constantly transmit their position via GPS.
– We have a very good idea of where they are and when I go out to see them, I know where to go. It feels much simpler and safer, says Sören Carlsson.