Idaho ranchers go high-tech with invisible fences for cattle
by Rett Nelson eastidahonewscom · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Idaho ranchers adopt virtual fencing collars to manage cattle efficiently.
- The GPS-enabled collars alert cattle with beeps and shocks if boundaries are crossed.
- Jay Lazy S Angus Ranch reports reduced labor and improved grazing management.
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A virtual fencing collar for cattle is a new management tool for Idaho ranchers that's growing in popularity.
Lane Justus, Idaho resources coordinator for the Western Landowners Alliance — an organization helping to deploy more than 10,000 of the devices across the state over the next two years — tells EastIdahoNews.com it's similar to the technology pet owners use to keep dogs in their yard. The only difference is that no underground infrastructure has to be installed.
The GPS-enabled technology allows ranchers to use an app to draw invisible fence lines within a certain geographic area. Cattle that step outside of that line are shocked.
"If the cows are about to hit a fence line, the collar will beep, and the cows can hear it. If they cross the line, there's a shock," Justus says.
Although the virtual fencing system has been researched for decades, it didn't become commercially available until 2021. Justus says it's a precision management tool that helps ranchers better track their cattle without the added expense of building a physical fence.
It also allows the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and other agencies to protect wildlife habitat and areas impacted by wildfire.
Jay and Cheyenne Smith are the owners of the Jay Lazy S Angus Ranch in Carmen, an unincorporated area about five miles north of Salmon. During the summer, the couple graze cattle on state, federal, and private land.
They started using virtual fencing technology in 2023, and Jay says it's been a "game-changer" in a variety of ways.
"On one of our allotments, we have a little unfenced strip of BLM land (that we use)," Jay says. "We couldn't ever get all the cows off the BLM strip. There's always some on it all season long and they're only supposed to be on it for two weeks. We would ride and ride and ride four days a week to manage that small strip of ground."
With virtual fencing, Jay says they easily locate the stray cattle and move them inside the fence line.
Today, he says they're only riding the area three or four days a year, instead of the same number every week.
Jay's decision to start using virtual fencing was motivated in part by the 2022 Moose Fire. The human-caused blaze burned nearly 130,000 acres in the area where he grazes cattle. Two helicopter pilots were killed while helping to put it out.
Although Jay's grazing allotment allows him to use up to 70,000 acres, the Forest Service prefers ranchers to avoid grazing cattle for two to three years after a fire.
"In October of 2022, when I got back up there and looked around, there were about 40,000 of the best acres that either weren't burned at all or were burned very lightly. It just didn't seem fair to not have grazing for two to three years when the world is so hungry for beef," Jay recalls.
He proposed to the Forest Service that only certain areas be grazed and the others left untouched. Jay says it took a lot of negotiation, but ultimately, virtual fencing proved to be a win-win solution.
Jay says the technology is "an excellent tool for active range managers" and he recommends it to others.
Like Jay, Justus also says virtual fencing is mutually beneficial. A grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation helps offset the cost to ranchers, and that's increased interest.
Justus says she's grateful for the partnerships with state agencies and ranchers to help make the rollout successful.
"It's still a fairly expensive technology and grants like this really help ranchers utilize the resources," Justus says. "We're learning a lot as we're deploying it on the landscape, and there's endless opportunity."
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