In a groundbreaking development on a dairy farm in northeast Wisconsin, innovation meets agriculture with a first-of-its-kind virtual fence.
The Van Wettering Farm, which is using this system, could be changing the game for heifer grazing.
Conservation agronomist Andy Kiefer sheds light on the innovative process.
“A collar is fitted onto those dairy heifers, and then the animals go through a training period to understand the correlation between audible cues and then a negative stimulant. And then once the animals get trained on that, we’re able to digitally draw a boundary on your app on your cell phone, and that’ll contain the animals within that boundary, so no physical barriers are needed,” he explains. “The animals can be completely controlled with audible cues.”
Kiefer also highlights how this technology acts as a guardian, alerting farmers to potential health issues or injuries among their herd.
All together, Wisconsin’s dairy industry creates 157,000 jobs.
