The Halter Plan

Back last spring before moving back to ranch while I was still working at the doctor's office I had asked a friend (the husband of a Nurse Practitioner) who raises cows what his go-to agriculture podcasts were.  He named a few: A regenerative agriculture podcast called "The Working Cows Podcast", Kansas State has one that covers markets well, UNL has another.  UNL’s is called “The beef watch podcast” with Aaron Burger (who happens to have one of the best names for a beef podcast). He did a series of episodes on virtual collars that have started to come into the United States over the last couple years.  

The main goal of the collars is to have more control on where the cows are and to incorporate rotational grazing.  This can bring better land utilization, allowing areas to rest as well as fuller grazing over areas that get passed over for "sweeter grass".  Guided by GPS and a mapping app, they use a combination of beeps, shocks, and vibration to steer the cows on where to go. 

The more I looked into them the more I thought how useful they could be.  I definitely annoyed my dad, wife, brother...who knows who else as I would bring up how collars could fix so many problems.

Cow gets sick and dies: "If she had a collar we might have caught she wasn't moving much sooner!". 
Cows get out onto the neighbors:  "Collars would have shocked them and kept them from getting out!".  
Cows stand in water and get foot rot: "We could have fenced those mudholes out!".  
Tractor breaks down: .." Collars would!...never mind I guess it won't fix everything."

We had a call with a rancher out in Western Nebraska who has been utilizing collars this last year and one comment he said was, "I definitely don't want to go back to ranching the way I used to [before collars]".  One commentator on a podcast said virtual collars may be the next biggest innovation in fencing since barbed wire. Time will tell. 

We should be getting a couple towers to install the end of December and after that collars should arrive and can be placed on cows.  Here's a short video explaining how they work from the company we've decided to go with.   

It's a tool I hope can lend toward better stewardship of cattle and land and hopefully save some labor hours too.  It's an interesting time to be in.  

God bless you all. 

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