Have you been spending extra time putting up physical fence and netting to keep your small ruminants contained? Virtual fence can change the fencing game and give you some of your time back! By using GPS tracking, audio cues, and mild electric pulses, virtual fence holds livestock within the boundaries the user maps on a phone or computer. These capabilities allow virtual fencing to have radical flexibility in grazing management, but they require the user to understand species specific behavior and management.  

Sheep and goats excel at vegetation control in challenging areas with heavy tree cover, brush or invasive species. Implementing physical fences in those areas can be a little tricky and labor intensive. Virtual fencing offers a great solution to this. You can frequently move livestock within boundaries that you outline yourself. Additionally, because virtual fencing technology uses GPS tracking, you are also able to see where each animal is at any given moment, getting an alert if an animal is not moving for a certain time, helping you find them if they escape the boundary.   

For producers who raise both cattle and small ruminants, virtual fencing can make it easier to graze species together or separately to meet animal needs and vegetation management goals. Mixed-species grazing makes better use of varied pasture vegetation and can help control unwanted plants and support pasture health when stocking rates and recovery periods are managed appropriately. A system that supports multiple species may also simplify day-to-day management by allowing producers to monitor their animals through one platform. 

Virtual fencing may also open doors for producers who do not own land. In a recent BeefWatch podcast, a Nebraska producer, Ellen Trahan, has great insights into using virtual fencing on their goat herd. Ellen described using collars to move goats among customers’ properties for targeted grazing without installing or repairing physical fences at each location. This mobility makes it easier to offer brush and weed control as a service. 

Another unexpected benefit was the ability to support parasite management. Ellen mentioned that they’ve had fewer parasite problems after using virtual fencing to move goats onto fresh forage more easily. Although virtual fencing does not control parasites directly, it can make it easier to move goats to fresh forage and reduce their exposure to parasite larvae. 

There are a handful of virtual fence options currently on the market for cattle, but the options for sheep and goats are rather limited. Currently, there are two companies that market small ruminant virtual fence collars in the U.S.: HerdStreet and NoFence. NoFence will cater to both small and large ruminants, whereas HerdStreet currently only caters to small ruminants.  

Now, any cool technology must have a few pitfalls. For virtual fencing, the primary pitfall is the cost. The average cost per collar is $220 with an additional yearly subscription fee of roughly $40 per collar per year to use the app and cover cellular charges. These costs vary depending on the company.  

In addition, the wool on the neck of sheep generally needs to be sheared before collars are attached to help ensure signals (audio cue and shock) can be received by the sheep when they interact with the boundary, adding another management task to the collaring process. 

Below is a table that outlines some of the differences between HerdStreet and NoFence.  

For more information about virtual fence or its application to your herd or flock, please reach out to Marissa Eekhoff (402-472-7379) with any questions.