In today’s Beef Buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Theo Beaumont of Halter, who says the company is helping ranchers rethink grazing management through virtual fencing technology.
Beaumont explains Halter uses a solar-powered GPS collar placed on cows that allows producers to contain and move cattle without a traditional fence. “We use a combination of sound, vibration and there’s electric pulse to contain your cows, but also to move them as well,” Beaumont said.
A Blank Canvas for Grazing Management
Beaumont says producers should think of virtual fencing as a way to redesign their ranch without the cost of building a permanent cross fence.
“Take your farm or your ranch, make it a blank canvas in your mind, then give yourself an unlimited fencing budget,” Beaumont said. “That might be you want to rotationally graze a little bit more, you don’t want to put more capital into cross fencing, or you want to slew cattle from a certain area. That’s what these collars enable.”
He says the system allows ranchers to draw grazing boundaries directly from a phone app. Producers can see the location of every collared cow, create pasture shapes, and allocate acreage with precision.
“You can select a group of cows, draw the new shape that they’re going to be contained within just on your phone,” Beaumont said. “You can get really precise on where you want those cows grazing.”
Built Around Stockmanship
Beaumont stresses the collars are not meant to replace good cattle handling, but to support it.
“This is definitely no replacement for stockmanship,” he said. “All of the movement of your cows within a pasture, though, can be done with Halter.”
He says the collars are designed to work calmly with cattle using low-stress principles. Audible cues guide animals away from boundaries, while vibration is used as positive reinforcement to move them toward fresh feed.
“We want really nice, calm cows,” Beaumont said. “We’re using this really good positive reinforcement to move them, not a negative reinforcement.”
Growing Use Across the United States
Halter first launched in New Zealand and has expanded into the U.S. market, where Beaumont says adoption continues to grow.
“We’re live in 24 states across the western U.S.,” he said. “One of the really cool areas in states like Oklahoma has been a lot of the winter grazing management, swath grazing, bale grazing, strip grazing through the winter as we’re trying to manage input cost of hay.”
Beaumont says producers interested in learning more can search Halter virtual fencing online and connect with local representatives to discuss whether the system fits their operation.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR above for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
