A virtual fencing trial at Victoria River Research Station (Kidman Springs) in the Northern Territory has provided an early look mustering with virtual fencing in extensive systems.
All animals >200kg at Kidman Springs are currently fitted with virtual fencing collars, and at the recent second round muster, they were used to help bring cattle into the yards. Virtual paddocks and coolers were created to bring mobs towards the corner of their paddocks and trap them on water, ready to be walked in. Virtual laneways were also trialled.
Some paddocks were mustered using only virtual fencing, with horses and bikes to then walk the mob in, while others had a helicopter grid the paddock afterwards where there were known cleanskins or a clean muster was crucial to other research projects.
Not only did this significantly reduce chopper hours, but the only animals the chopper found left in the paddocks were cleanskins, and a handful of un-collared weaners that were known to staff.
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Project Lead, Christie Pearson, says these results are encouraging, “Everything that we attempted to muster and block up with a virtual paddock, we were able to, and then walk them back to the yards.”
In the week or two leading up to second round, Christe put a fair amount of planning into how the virtual collars would be used for mustering. She would spend up to an hour a day mostly monitoring cattle movements, and then opportunistically moving virtual boundaries to gradually move mobs. Although, the actual moving of boundaries was relatively quick and easy, and new features in the tech alongside more experience are expected to reduce the time spent monitoring animals.
The use of laneways also showed opportunities for reduced labour and time, being able to send just one person on a bike out to tail a mob in or out along an invisible laneway to wherever it needed to go.
An additional observation was the behaviour of cattle gathered in the virtual coolers the night before mustering.
Rather than being brought together by a helicopter the morning of, cattle had already been settled in one location before the crew arrived. Staff noted that the cattle were very relaxed and easy to walk after having been held on water with the collars.
While this has demonstrated the approach could work under the conditions tested at Kidman Springs, there are still questions to answer around larger paddocks, multiple water points and how collared cows will move with uncollared calves and weaners during future musters.
The collars will remain on animals at Kidman Springs over the wet season and be used again at first round to start looking at some of these potential challenges.
Watch the video below for a more detailed update on how we went about mustering with virtual fencing, and the results.
Project contact
Christie Pearson (NT DAF), phone (08) 8973 8476 or email christie.pearson@nt.gov.au
This work is a sub-project of the Crops for Cattle project, led by the NT Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and funded by the CRC for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA).
