Our Virtual Fence Journey...
On the evening of August 14, 2021 the Caldor Fire started immediately adjacent to our US Forest Service summer grazing allotment. We began evacuating our herd the next morning. We got very lucky, and had a lot of help from friends and family. We managed to recover most of our animals and get them to safety. The fire burned until Oct 21, 2024 consuming 221,835 acres. Among the many things that burned was about 7 miles of our northern boundary fence and the northern 1/3 of our summer grazing range.
The year after a fire (possibly 2 years) it is fairly standard that the USFS will not allow grazing animals into the burned area. We were told we could take the cattle back to the mountains but only allow them to graze the unburned portion of our range. This would have required us to build about 7 miles of temporary fence. That is a lot of time, labor and materials for a temporary structure! We began looking for alternatives.
What we found was virtual fence. The cows wear a special collar that has a global positioning system (GPS) on board. The rancher sets up boundaries on the computer and uploads the boundaries into the collars. There are 2 different zones in the boundary. If a cow wanders her way into the first zone, the collar beeps. If she turns back around, there are no consequences. If she continues on into the second zone, she gets an electrical impulse similar to what is delivered by electric fencing. A training period is required for the animals so that they understand the meaning of the cues the collar is giving them. Most of them learn very quickly to respect the beep.