Thursday, March 28, 2024

Gallagher shifts from electric fencing

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Gallagher, the animal management company best known for the electric fence, has moved into the new frontier of virtual fencing after purchasing virtual fence company Agersens.
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The Australian company are the creators of eShepherd, a virtual fencing system that uses GPS-connected collars fitted around a cattle beast’s neck that uses audio cues and pulses to direct the animal.

Gallagher first began investing in eShepherd in 2016 and moved to full ownership earlier this month.

Speaking at Fieldays, Gallagher chief executive Kahl Betham said the farming industry had reached a tipping point where older technology was being replaced by digitisation. Gallagher’s purchase of Agersens fitted into the company’s future of farms strategy.

“The eShepherd product provides us with a critical component of this future farm platform, which adds animal monitoring and also automated pasture management,” Betham said.

Individual precision animal management was the way of the future for farming, Gallagher global strategy and new ventures manager Sarah Adams added.

“It’s where a lot of the productivity gains can be made,” Adams said.

Everything is becoming digitised and individual precision animal management was a big opportunity for increasing productivity in the near future.

She says eShepherd pulled together Gallagher’s other animal monitoring technologies, and farmers can manage every animal as an individual, providing a quantum lift in productivity.

Adams compared it to the productivity lift sheep farmers obtained when sheep pregnancy scanning became available.

“This is another technology that will enable you to identify individual animals and manage them completely differently,” she said.

Using eShepherd, farmers can set up virtual paddocks and fence lines to effectively manage their stock. They create the virtual fence from either their tablet or computer, using GPS coordinates on a digital map of their property.

Each animal is fitted with a solar-powered neckband around its neck, which monitors its location and controls its movement. The collar is connected online by a base station.

As they near the GPS fence, they are alerted by an audio cue from the neckband – a loud beep. If they move away from the fence, nothing further happens. If they ignore the cue and cross the boundary, the neckband delivers a short aversive electrical pulse; a training approach similar to that used for a traditional electric fence.

This ensured the cattle stayed out of waterways or other sensitive areas.

The neckband also contains software designed to alert farmers if the animal is behaving abnormally.

“It’s a real game-changer in how we manage our pasture and our animals,” she said.

The product has been trialed on Australian farms and Gallagher is working with Pamu to trial eShepherd on New Zealand farms ahead of its expected commercial release next year.

The GPS-driven interface also has the capability for farmers to create exclusion zones within the inclusion area, allowing overgrazed paddocks, areas prone to pugging or waterways within a paddock to be virtually fenced off.

All trials have been run under animal ethics approval. The technology will detect if an animal is being chased or has bolted through the eShepherd fence and will automatically turn off.

Farmers can set up as many virtual paddocks as they need. When cattle are ready to be moved, the farmer selects the virtual paddock destination and, if it is contiguous, the system pushes them to the new paddock from the back.

While the cost of the neckband was still being finalised, Adams estimated it would cost around $300 each.

Gallagher global marketing manager Mark Harris says farming was a tough profession, with fewer people wanting to go into it for a career.

“But with new technology and new ways of doing things, we can put the fun back into farming – how farming was when people had more time to spend with their families and to do the things they enjoy,” Harris said, adding technology can take us to that place.

Sir William Gallagher says company founder Bill Gallagher would have been very surprised by the technology, but the world was heading in that direction.

“It’s a big step from where he came from,” Gallagher said.

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