Experimenting with Nofence grazing
If you have previously read this news item, scroll down to the UPDATE to find out how it's going.
About three years ago we became aware of Nofence grazing. Nofence technology enables you set a virtual fence line. The grazing animals, in our case cows, wear a solar powered rechargeable collar. Using GPS the collar constantly tracks the location of the cows. If an animal approaches the virtual boundary, the collar plays a series of tones that increase in pitch. If the cow continues, a mild electrical pulse is delivered. The animals very quickly associate the noise with the virtual fence line and turn around before their collar pulses.
We were very intrigued by this new tec as we could see great benefits for extensive, conservation grazing. Especially in areas that are open to the public and have the added hazards of steep slopes and cliffs.
Of course we needed to be very confident that the technology would be fit for purpose. There would be no point in even considering such a major investment if the GPS signal wasn't totally reliable, the collars didn't hold their charge or they failed in Scilly's very damp climate. Luckily, the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust took the plunge first. We followed their experience of Nofence closely and when that seemed to be going well we requested a trial collar.
What followed was a rather bizarre weekend of setting up virtual pastures in different places and tentatively walking around with a collar to make sure it was set off as expected and was connecting well to the Nofence app. This testing went well and we decided to take the plunge.
UPDATE
In early February we fitted the cows with their collars and then set a training virtual fence, whilst still keeping them within a physical fence. This let the cows get used to the new system and taught them to respond to the audio cues given by the collars. Using the Nofence app we could monitor how the cows were responding and how many audio warnings and then, if necessary, mild shocks had happened. These numbers fell swiftly and this week we felt confident to set a larger virtual fence and take down the physical fence.
So far so good! The cows seem to be enjoying the larger area. They have loved exploring and munching their way through a patch of storm damaged trees that would have been tricky to physically fence.
Our fellow islander's can also access the Nofence website and see where the virtual fence line is and the location of the cows within it. Sorry you won't be able to see our fence and cows on the website if you are more than 20km away, you'll have to wait until you visit Scilly!
SOME ADVANTAGES OF NOFENCE
The cows can graze far more extensively as we are not limited by fence length or where we can physically fence. The larger grazing areas will give the cows a wider choice of habitat to forage through. Being able to exhibit more natural behaviour tends to increase welfare.
We will be able to enclose areas with a virtual fence that previously we couldn't practically reach. This will increase the area being grazed for conservation and in turn will improve biodiversity.
In a beautiful landscape there will be no fencing poles and orange electric fence wire visible.
WHAT WE WON'T BE DOING
We won't be using our new found ability to track the cows to reduce the amount of actual welfare checks we do. For example knowing where the cows are doesn't tell you if the water bowser is work properly or not.
We won't be using a Nofence collar on Yorkie our bull. We have never grazed Yorkie on open land that the public has access to and this won't change.
Both the cows and us are still very much at the learning stage. If all goes according to plan, we hope to be fully up and running in a few weeks. Once this happens there will be signposting to the Nofence website so anybody can see the virtual fence line and where the cows are in real time.