By Codi Vallery-Mills, The Cattle Business Weekly
Virtual fencing has become a regular topic presented at cattle industry symposiums and more and more cattlemen are interested in the technology. Virtual fences allow ranchers to better utilize their pastures in a variety of ways. Animals can be moved through a rotational grazing system that doesn’t require permanent fencing or poly wire to be strung. Also, certain areas of pastures, say a wetlands area, can be kept off-limits to cattle easily.
Jack Keating of Nebraska has designed a cattle wearable that is used in these virtual fencing scenarios. He was raised near Atkinson, Nebraska on a ranching operation. As a youth, he quickly realized that creating and maintaining barbed wire fencelines was not his passion. While still in high school he began to think about using a collar system similar to what is used for dog collars. Then while in college, he began to test a prototype using electric dog collar components to keep his family’s cattle in certain boundary areas.
After years of testing various models, getting more technical knowledge along the way, and employing the skills of others, Keating launched Corral Technologies, a cow collar for virtual fencing needs. The company is getting ready to roll out 2,000 units this month with more planned for 2025.
The Collar
The collars are designed to be durable, but Keating says after two years the company plans to send new collars to cattlemen. “We’re planning on them lasting for about two years out on the cow. At that point, they probably just need to be replaced. They’re going to be beaten up pretty well just as a lot of equipment is by cows. After those two years are up, we’ll just send the producer new devices as part of our warranty.”
The data used within the software is held only within the collar’s app and Keating says the company has taken extra privacy measures to keep that information private.
The collars are solar-charged and battery powered lasting about 14 days without any sun before needing to be recharged. They are rated for -20 degree winter weather.
To place them on the cattle, Keating recommends doing it at a time when you already have to work the cattle through a chute. “The collar slips over the head and then there’s a buckle on either side, you tighten it down, close the buckle, then we have a little clasp that goes over the buckle, just keeps it locked in place so it doesn’t open up in the field. And then you’re good to go and you’ll be able to assign it to each cow. You just take your phone out, you tap the collar, and then it pulls up a little dashboard that says enter tag number. You do that, press okay, and you’re good to go.”
The collars operate off of the Corral Technologies’ app used on a mobile device or desktop. GPS, satellite and cell service are required at this point to fully operate the collars but Keating says updates coming in 2025 will allow ranchers to be without cell service and still able to access the app’s functions.
Keating is excited to see the feedback these 2,000 collars have. He says the product isn’t perfect but he along with others at Corral Technologies are improving on the concept daily. The collars will be used in 15 states with a variety of situations from intensive grazing to some larger paddocks.
“The biggest limitations we have right now is how small of a pasture you want to make and then also how often you’re moving the cows,” Keating says. “Ten cows to an acre is kind of the max we can do just because if you get more, they interact with the boundary more and you get more GPS locations and it drains the battery.”
He says for rotational grazers the move frequency is once a day right now. “Those pastures need to be right next to each other just because we’re not going to drive them 10 miles or anything. But if we need to drive them a quarter mile into the next pasture that’s easy for us to do,” Keating says.
The collars will send notifications to cattle producers if animals are out of bounds. There is also a notification if an animal hasn’t moved for more than three hours alerting the owner to the fact that the cow has a problem or the collar has fallen off.
Keating says the collars work off of sound and electric pulse to direct cattle. “Unique for our system is we give them stimulus on the left or the right side. They turn away from the stimulus, which just gives them a direction to go rather than zapping on both sides and hoping that they stop. It also helps with just moving cows from one pasture to the next where you can actually kind of ping pong them or guide them into that next pasture.”
The collars are $250 each and then $50 per collar per year. “So basically the first year is $300 each and every year after that’s $50. And that $50 includes your cell service, your app, and then that warranty on the collar. If anything happens to it, we’ll send you a new one.”
Keating believes that the increase in productivity – better forage usage, herd increases and pounds gained – will pay for the collars. “The biggest potential increase in my mind is being able to increase your herd size by up to 40 percent on the same amount of land.”
Find out more at corraltech.com.
