Invisible Fence for Cows or Cattle

[horse7]

When searching for more information on subsoilers (a different topic on burying RG-11) I found some references to invisible fencing for cattle:
NewsNotes #47 -- Agricultural Environment Notes
(search on invisible or use the page link)
and
Invisible fence uses GPS to keep cattle in | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Since there didn't seem to be anything in TBN on this, thought I would throw the thread out.

The second method has some obvious advantages, namely if the nodes are self organizing, or wifi/WiMax/cell connected to a central computer, one can notice [or a computer algorithm can notice] any irregular behaviours of the animals (besides the obvious of being tracked down after escaping).

Also, using the methods of the latter link, one can just redraw fences on a PC map of the farm and voila! new temporary internal fencing.... no wires or posts or electric although I'd still want physical perimeter fencing!. I suppose it might be possible to herd them remotely too, buzz'em when they go in the wrong direction, leave them alone when the wander in the desired direction.

There are a lot of possibilities, now cell/GPS combination units are pretty tiny, and a self organizing network with backhaul is even tinier (except for the backhaul nodes). Power for continuous GPS operation is still an issue as mentioned, can't get 6 months out of a reasonably light set of batteries - yet.

 

[slowrev]

I would think that system to be pretty pricy per head.

A neighbor of my sister in CO called a company to come out and put in an invisible fence for them. After he was done the neighbor told the installer they were glad they would not have to worry anymore about deer eating their shrubs

 

[texasjohn]

I don't think it's ready for prime time...below is quote from the experimenter:

" Greise says the fence "worked great" initially but not so well lately. He found that each battery needs to be changed at least every six months, and the metal shock prongs break off easily when the cows rub against the bars on their feed troughs. "The technology needs to be improved," said Greise, before he would recommend the system to others."

The Australian site says:

"Commercial versions are up to 10 years away. The batteries currently last about a week and would need to have a life of several months to be practical."



My design parameters would be:


Cost less than $5 per animal


Install as young as 2 week old calf.


Last a lifetime of 18 years for a cow/bull without any hands-on component/batt replacement.



Be recoverable/reusable when animal is slaughtered or dies on the ranch.



Work with accuracy of 5 feet.... else throwing away excessive grass along entire fence line area


unique animal ID be implanted in each device to respond when stimulated


Home device/computer cost be less than $200 and serve a ranch/property of 5 miles radius



Must be foolproof, never go crazy, never respond to neighbor's controller, self report malfunction


Withstand temperatures +150F to -30F and remain operational


Home device must include battery backup of 2 days in case of power outage


if I purchase a neighbor's animal that already is implanted, device must be capable of responding to my contoller via some sort of reprogramming and now ignore my neighbor's system/signals


Device must be easily turned off..imagine loading a trailer with cattle,then what happens when I drive past the invisible fence and all cattle get shocked at same time!



Alternate controller device must be highly portable... I saddle up, take my alternate controller in my saddle bag... ride out to the back pasture and discover that cattle were spooked by storm/panther/dog pack/etc. and simply stampeeded past/beyond the invisible fence. Now, they are located and ready to return home but can't until the invisible fence is turned off so they can be pushed/encouraged to reenter their home territory. If I have to return to my primary controller, maybe miles away over rough country to turn stuff off, I'm in a mell of a hess!

Alternate controller must be able to withstand rigors of ranch work..heat, water, cold, shock, dust, etc.

Device must be functional for wide range of stock often run together: cattle, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, mules, donkeys, deer (big money saver if high fences no longer needed), buffalo, exotics of all kinds, llamas, alpacas... list goes on and on.

Appropriate designer colors and designs should be available for controllers... black for the Angus, red/white for hereford, cowhide for cattle people, white for the dairyman, wool for the sheep herder, etc... And a nice place to put the ranch brand...

Goodness, I'm just getting started...

All this has to work regardless of weather, thunderstorms, rain, snow, ice, mountains, trees, any continent/hemisphere... and be rustler proof...

I have a vision of a rustler getting hold of this technology, going to a remote location, commanding the invisible fence to slowly move toward his location. Hooray! All stock in the area are forced to move directly to him..Not one can hide or escape! and then he loads them into the trailer and heads down the road.

Dare I mention the legal problems if an animal escapes the invisible fence and human injury or death results... imagine the law suits...

 

[Soundguy]

No problem.. I'm sure they have something like that on 'star trek'

Soundguy

 

[Jimbrown]

hhehehehehehheheh I am falling over. That stuff on a big old range cow would not do anything but make her mad and she would probably stomp anything close by to death. Heck most of the ranchers around here don't even have fences and don't care. How the heck are you gonna fence 20,000 ac.

 

[horse7]

I don't think it's ready for prime time...below is quote from the experimenter:

" Greise says the fence "worked great" initially but not so well lately. He found that each battery needs to be changed at least every six months, and the metal shock prongs break off easily when the cows rub against the bars on their feed troughs. "The technology needs to be improved," said Greise, before he would recommend the system to others."

The Australian site says:

"Commercial versions are up to 10 years away. The batteries currently last about a week and would need to have a life of several months to be practical."



My design parameters would be:


Cost less than $5 per animal


Install as young as 2 week old calf.


Last a lifetime of 18 years for a cow/bull without any hands-on component/batt replacement.



Be recoverable/reusable when animal is slaughtered or dies on the ranch.



Work with accuracy of 5 feet.... else throwing away excessive grass along entire fence line area


unique animal ID be implanted in each device to respond when stimulated


Home device/computer cost be less than $200 and serve a ranch/property of 5 miles radius



Must be foolproof, never go crazy, never respond to neighbor's controller, self report malfunction


Withstand temperatures +150F to -30F and remain operational


Home device must include battery backup of 2 days in case of power outage


if I purchase a neighbor's animal that already is implanted, device must be capable of responding to my contoller via some sort of reprogramming and now ignore my neighbor's system/signals


Device must be easily turned off..imagine loading a trailer with cattle,then what happens when I drive past the invisible fence and all cattle get shocked at same time!



Alternate controller device must be highly portable... I saddle up, take my alternate controller in my saddle bag... ride out to the back pasture and discover that cattle were spooked by storm/panther/dog pack/etc. and simply stampeeded past/beyond the invisible fence. Now, they are located and ready to return home but can't until the invisible fence is turned off so they can be pushed/encouraged to reenter their home territory. If I have to return to my primary controller, maybe miles away over rough country to turn stuff off, I'm in a mell of a hess!

Alternate controller must be able to withstand rigors of ranch work..heat, water, cold, shock, dust, etc.

Device must be functional for wide range of stock often run together: cattle, sheep, goats, horses, dogs, mules, donkeys, deer (big money saver if high fences no longer needed), buffalo, exotics of all kinds, llamas, alpacas... list goes on and on.

Appropriate designer colors and designs should be available for controllers... black for the Angus, red/white for hereford, cowhide for cattle people, white for the dairyman, wool for the sheep herder, etc... And a nice place to put the ranch brand...

Goodness, I'm just getting started...

All this has to work regardless of weather, thunderstorms, rain, snow, ice, mountains, trees, any continent/hemisphere... and be rustler proof...

I have a vision of a rustler getting hold of this technology, going to a remote location, commanding the invisible fence to slowly move toward his location. Hooray! All stock in the area are forced to move directly to him..Not one can hide or escape! and then he loads them into the trailer and heads down the road.

Dare I mention the legal problems if an animal escapes the invisible fence and human injury or death results... imagine the law suits...

The first 3 are the hard ones. After that, most everything is relatively easy... not even state of the art mostly (except for 'never go crazy', people seem to want to use "Windows(r)", which is a surefire way to lose cows , and the lawyer part, which is what drives a lot of innovation offshore ).

As for rustlers, just press the "spontaneously combust" button and, well, all that methane in the cow is just waiting for a spark! [before anyone goes on about how the neighbors will torch the milking parlor or whatever by combusting the cows, the link is encrypted and each cow has its own ID. This is trivial COTS stuff].

It is not clear why one would bother to recover the device at the slaughterhouse for 5 bucks a head.... maybe if it was a goat or chicken or something cheap. There'd be a cost to refurbish and send it back, seems hardly worth it.

The main use I'd have for similar tech is for valuable animals, cell/GPS to know where they are, and get signalled if the GPS showed out of bounds so someone could go out and bring them back. This would also help fend off lawyers, since the sooner a large animal is back the less likely some soccer mom will trash her bimbo box running into it.

 

[TedLaRue]

Also, using the methods of the latter link, one can just redraw fences on a PC map of the farm and voila!

I don't think it would be quite as simple as that. You'd have to reprogram all of the GPS devices on the cattle. In order to be able to change the map on the PC, the cattle would have to receive more than just the GPS data from the satellites (e.g., the new boundary data), which would require specialized satellites (there goes texasjohn's $5/head limit!).

texasjohn: I loved your post, especially this scenario:

Device must be easily turned off..imagine loading a trailer with cattle,then what happens when I drive past the invisible fence and all cattle get shocked at same time!

 

[texasjohn]

Hey... I just write the specs... now, it's simply a matter of engineering!!!

Regarding recovery of the device from a dead animal... check the margins of profit on animal husbandry... Anybody with any quantity of animals will want to recover the device from a deceased animal... and they do die on the ranch as well as at the slaughter house.... $5 is an important part of the whole income/expense equation...

 

[texasjohn]

Well, here's the device that knows where the critter is:

The TRACKSTICK

Now, just encapsulate it in heavy metal so it stays in the 1st stomach of a cow...like a magnet...and put a power generator in it so the battery remains charged by natural animal motions...like the flashlight you shake back and forth... and put a bluetooth transmitter in it so it reads out its location and alarms as necessary... and have bluetooth reciever in shock collar...

and, that's all there is to it

 

[Lucky1]

Invisible fences work great for invisible cows. Real easy to feed to.