June 21, 2026

They’re on!

It has taken us a while to get to this point but we finally have the NoFence virtual fence collars on the cows! Most of the cows adjusted to them quickly with just a shake of their head. The younger cows and heifers put on quite a bucking show when they received their new necklace. After a few days in the “training pasture” the girls had it figured out and were ready for a new pasture with fresh grass.

Creating new pastures in the app seems to be easy. With the drought and lack of water infrastructure in the pasture the cows must access the creek for drinking water. We have been holding them in the northeast corner of the pasture where a good stream flows through. With just a tap on the iPhone screen we can “move” the fence and give them a couple more acres each day. Calves can creep ahead but seem to stay pretty close to the herd. Notifications let us know when cows receive audio cues or pulses to turn back. So far we have only had a few “excapes” and the cow came back into the virtual fence in a short time.

We did have a couple of oops. One collar fell off, the cow pictured was able to get the chain over one ear and one managed to get the button of her eartag through the rubber neckband hole! Because the cows were close to the corral we were able to get the collars back on correctly. We are excited to use this new technology for our rotational grazing and to use intensive livestock grazing as a tool for land management.