The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 2018–2019
eShepherd's GPS audio-collar fence keeps cattle in bounds with no physical fence
A solar collar plays a warning tone at the virtual boundary and pulses only if the cow ignores it; cattle learn the tone, so fences move from a phone.
Agersens
the move
Physical fences are expensive to build, move and maintain, and they cannot react to the season or protect sensitive zones on demand; mustering cattle across large paddocks eats labor.
CSIRO developed, and Agersens commercialized, eShepherd: solar-powered GPS neckbands that emit an audio tone at the virtual boundary and deliver an electrical pulse only if the animal keeps moving forward. A 2019 CSIRO study with 64 steers found virtual fencing contained cattle as effectively as electric tape for four weeks.
The cattle answered 71.5 percent of cues with the audio tone alone, and stress measures showed no difference between virtually fenced and electrically fenced groups — the mechanism worked with welfare intact, and fences moved by phone.
why it works
- Associative learning means most animals stop at the tone, not the shock.
- Boundaries can be redrawn from a phone in seconds — cheap rotation grazing.
- Protecting riparian and sensitive areas becomes practical and precise.
- Per-animal GPS data add monitoring value on top of containment.
what transfers
Replace fixed infrastructure with a signal carried by the thing it governs: once the constraint travels with the animal or user, relocating it costs nothing.
what came after
Gallagher took over commercialization as Gallagher eShepherd (formerly Agersens), and virtual fencing is now an established tool for cattle, sheep and goats in Australia, Europe and North America.
references
- Virtual Fencing Is Comparable to Electric Tape Fencing for Cattle Behavior and Welfare (Front. Vet. Sci., 2019)
- CSIRO — eShepherd Virtual Fencing
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.