Virtual fencing could be a "game changer" in helping pastoralists gain greater productivity out of their land while protecting fragile areas from overgrazing according to Jake and Francesca Fennell, Wintinna Station, via Coober Pedy.
They hosted the recently completed SARDI trial in the state's Far North and have seen the benefits of rotating stock regularly around paddocks and maintaining a good feedbase so it can respond quicker after a rain event.
However with Wintinna 3812 square kilometres in area permanently fencing it into many more paddocks would be costly.
Virtual fencing also offers the the chance to have flexibility in the size and shape of their paddocks.
"We worked out it would cost us around $5 million to fence 1100km using a traditional three barb fence which would give us 24 paddocks on our western side for the rotation," Ms Fennell said.
Instead they are looking to virtual fencing although this will require changes to the Animal Welfare Act 1995 which currently does not permit the use of devices in SA, except for approved research.
This legislation is under review.
In April 100 of Wintinna Station's Bos Indicus cross heifers were fitted with the virtual fencing collars for the trial funded by the state government and the SA Drought Hub.
Each neck collar which contains a GPS locator emits an audio signal when the animal is nearing the pre-programmed perimeter and if the animal ignores this and breaches the area it will receive an aversive pulse.
Over the six month trial the heifers remained in a 45 square kilometre area and were moved monthly. The collars operate using one of the Long range wide area network (LowRAN) base towers overcoming the lack of mobile coverage across most of the property. The battery life of each collar is about 9-12 months.
SARDI senior research officer Megan Willis who has been working on the Virtual Fencing for Livestock project, including work at Struan Research Centre in the state's SE, was keen to see how it would work in the pastoral areas.
She says the trial was a success with very good interaction between the cattle and the virtual fence and no negative impact on the temperament or production of the cattle.
"We are still running the numbers but the return on investment for this particular scenario is looking really good," she said.
Ms Willis says they started the heifers on a seven day training period in a smaller paddock but they had a very quiet temperament and learned very quickly within two to three days to respond to the signals.
Ms Fennell says it is pleasing to see the heifers were not concerned with wearing the collars which emit a shock less than an electric fence when the animal breaches the perimeter.
"Our cattle are our biggest investment and what we earn our income from so we were concerned how they would react and perform with the collars on." she said.
"Within a couple of seconds of being out of the crush with the collars on they carried on as normal, no different to having a management tag put in."
The heifers gained 0.8 kilograms a day during the six month trial which was what they expected given the season.
There were a few escapees during a storm, which can also occur with physical fences, but Ms Fennell says the following morning they had returned to the mob.
"At the start of the trial one heifer escaped both the physical fence and the virtual fence, but because of the tracking available via the collars we were able to see where she was the whole time which was 20 kilometres away in a different paddock," she said.
"Being able to see your cattle in live-time is nearly as valuable as a virtual fence itself."
During the trial there were a couple of the collars which stopped transmitting or providing signals to the animals but Ms Fennell says as the technology develops these issues are likely to be less.
She only sees upside if virtual fencing becomes commercially available and says it will be really beneficial on the western side of their station which has dense trees.
"Hopefully once it becomes legal in SA there will be more suppliers and customers and cost per unit will come down just as it has with water telemetry," she said.
Another benefit Ms Fennell saw was being able to create a virtual laneway into the yards using the technology to make mustering far less stressful and with less people.
The one kilometre wide laneway was created 24 hours prior to the muster and then the area updated every 10 minutes to ensure all the animals were moving along.
"We got 100 per cent of them back in which with our land type doesn't usually happen," Ms Fennell said.
