Remote Control Cows?!

High tech on the range:
By: Scott Cotton, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Educator

In 2001 and 2002 I had a brief opportunity to collaborate with the Dean Anderson at the USDA ARS Jornada Research Station near Las Cruces, New Mexico, on a project the tracked cattle with solar-powered satellite collars which could send low voltage "buzzes" to cattle and direct where they grazed. This research allowed the Jornada Station (over 28,000 acres) to remove most of the internal fences and control cow movement, bunching at breeding and avoidance of poisonous plants by checking and sending signals to the cattle via a satellite.

At that time the system could check on the exact location of each collared cow on five minute intervals. As the development cost on the collars shrunk from over $1,100 down to about $18 per cow the project became more feasible.

Ranchers working with the project on adjacent lands found they could control which bull-cow matches were together, where grazing was done and generally control the movement of the animals. I had Dean make a presentation to the Colorado Section of the Society for Range Management in 2002 while I served as its President. A rancher that came up with Dean to the meeting indicated he could cut "days off of his gathering time by electronically hazing cows towards the corrals in advance."

But recently the project has evolved in response to both cowboy tradition and pressure not to use even non-injurious shocks from the collars as stimuli.

The collars that Dean Anderson is currently using are implementing "satellite verbal herding." Instead of sending "buzzes" as stimuli the collars have a speaker near each ear (collars are very weather worthy) and the "controller" can haze the cattle using verbal commands much as we do from horseback.

The system which has been licensed to Krimar of Nova Scotia, can determine where a collared cow is anywhere on the planet within a 30 foot accuracy in five minute scans and send voice commands to either or both ears with various volume levels.

Here's the fun part -you can watch it on the Web at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/090325.htm

Wouldn't this be a blast at County Fairs and Cattle sales. You could use your laptop and tell people all about an animal, warn them that it kicks - or simply spook the tourists.

One of the cattle producers in New Mexico indicated that using this technology he felt he could stay active as a producer many years longer than he had planned on since his physical problems limited his time in a truck seat or a saddle. Now he could head the cattle where he wanted them.
With my luck, my wife would dial in and have all the cows yelling "come home for supper." This could work for teenage helpers though, couldn't it?