Environmentally conscious cattle rancher, Jim Strickland, has helped to inspire a new approach to keeping his herd on his Florida ranch without the use of extensive traditional fencing. Much as a suburban dog can be kept in its yard with invisible electronic boundaries, the cattle on Blackbeard’s Ranch have been fitted with collars that warn them if they are about to stray off the property. As Where The Food Comes From reports, the project was engineered by agronomy professor Joao Vendramini at the University of Florida Range Cattle Research and Education Center (REC).
For the GPS enabled cattle collars to work, Strickland installed two small cell tower units on the 2,500 acres of the property that monitor 100 animals. So far, Strickland and Vendramini report that the system has been largely successful, with only two escapees. The collar first issues an auditory warning to the wearer. If the cattle continue to keep moving, a mild jolt results, nudging them back into their designated area.
“In addition to using towers to give cattle signals, data will be stored in Strickland’s computer,” said Vendramini. “The next step is to bring the technology to the Range Cattle REC in Ona [Hardee County] and experiment with cattle there.” He added that the data collected will be able to help predict a model for cattle movement and grazing habits.
The invisible fencing relies on software that can be adjusted to direct the range of the herd. It also has the dual benefit of not restricting native wildlife, according to Where The Food Comes From.
“With the GPS collars and the tower, you get a system that’s friendlier to wildlife, and you can control your cattle,” stated Vendramini. “Wildlife can go through the fences and not even know they’re there.”
“Scientists validate us through research. We’ve seen how AI helps farming. I want to see how it helps ranching,” commented Strickland on the initial success of the AI fencing. “It has exceeded my expectations, but there are a lot of bugs to work out,” he continued. “This is the very beginning. It’s kind of like the beginning of the space program. Scientists had successes and glitches along the way, but they kept pushing forward to conduct world-class research that continues to help us in our lives today. We’re at the very tip of the sphere. The possibilities are endless.”
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