If I recall correctly, Cambridge City are using off the shelf grazing tech to help with a one off problem.<p>These digicowbells have a more common application of managing grazing herds in order to rotate them evenly through pastures without having to go out and redeploy fencing every week. If you want Daisy et al to let the north half of the field regrow you just draw a line around it in the app and it’ll get left ungrazed. Popular in large commonland projects too where you want to dynamically leave parts of the land fallow.<p>It’s also just handy to give your cattle a mobile device. You can monitor their health and breeding status. In the spirit of the dad joke about asking if iPhones “can also make phone calls!?”, it wouldn’t be crazy if these things shipped one day with some kind of two way communications. If Gertrude gets stuck ten miles up the valley it could be handy, perhaps, to see what the problem is before you fire up the brummy quattro (Land Rover.)
Ah - I live just a half mile from these fields. It’s one of the historical quirks of the city; lots of common land open to the public, grazed by cows.<p>Although there’s fencing on other boundaries of the grazing land it simply isn’t practical to fence off the river - and as someone who also rows on the river I usually see a cow in the water at least once a year, so it’ll be interesting to see if they work!
One of the great things about Cambridge, besides its bookstores and libraries, are all the green spaces.<p>Every time I visit (for synth-diy, mostly) .. I take a few hours and stroll along the cam, and through the city, and just .. enjoy the space.<p>Even though it is a busy and industrious little town, one can find a tree to park under and read for a few hours and thoroughly enjoy the environment. And yes, occasionally get interrupted by a curious bovine or two.<p>Also, you haven't lived until you've fallen off a punt or so, or at least enjoyed the view of others doing it while sipping on some suds at Granta on Mill Pond.<p>Bonus points for bonking ones noggin on the Mathematical Bridge while you're at it.<p>I really get a feeling that the city was set up for idle thought by the studious and curious. No surprise that it loves its cows too.
There is Australian research into virtual fencing <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/it/Virtual-fencing" rel="nofollow">https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/it/Virtual...</a> that has been commercialised. There’s a lot of expense in fencing and being able to herd cattle remotely is one of the benefits, you can also define areas to avoid, like rivers and dams without putting a fence in place.
Our neighbour's cow walked down a slope to drink from a river in the field near us. Unfortunately the slope was a bit muddy and it couldn't get back up again.<p>After we all tried to give it a bit of a push, we had to admit defeat and call in the Kent Fire Service Animal Rescue Unit: <a href="https://www.kent.fire-uk.org/news/meet-crew-specially-trained-rescue-animals-across-kent" rel="nofollow">https://www.kent.fire-uk.org/news/meet-crew-specially-traine...</a>
Found via:<p><a href="https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/05/local-news.html" rel="nofollow">https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/05/local-news.html</a><p>Sometimes the provenance is just as interesting
Pretty awesome tech, virtual fencing with noise and vibration, assume this is using <a href="https://www.halterhq.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.halterhq.com</a>. It can even be used to get them to walk to the shed for milking, or virtual break fencing
Meanwhile in German politics: "We don't need 5G on every cow facility" [1].<p>Turns out, modern agriculture needs good mobile connectivity wherever cows are being held...<p>Politics aside, what I don't get is why they don't go and raise temporary electric fences with gates - that's how cows are held in alpine regions. And a side note, if you go on a hike in alpine regions in Germany, please close the gates after you pass through so that the cows don't escape.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anja-karliczek-bremst-beim-netzausbau-5g-nicht-an-jeder-milchkanne-notwendig-a-450a7e4e-3e18-49d3-8132-c87b71c9b295" rel="nofollow">https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anja-karliczek-br...</a>
This technology is really interesting and practical! The idea of using GPS collars to prevent cows from walking into dangerous areas is so smart.
This is a perfect combination of technology and traditional agriculture. It not only reduces the risk of death of cows, but also saves rescue costs and is even good for the environment.<p>This also makes me think of a question: Can similar technology be applied to other fields, such as wildlife conservation? Many endangered species are now threatened with extinction, and technology like this may play a very important role in protecting them.
If it can help prevent animals from entering dangerous areas or better monitor their activities, it may bring great breakthroughs to conservation work.
Different solution: just release some turtles on the river bed.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_cS4Nf47jM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_cS4Nf47jM</a>
What is this article. GPS has been used for cow tracking since the 80s at least. Some of the companies have gone on to do ankle monitoring of people.<p>Turns out GPS isn't that accurate :)
The only potential problem I can see is that the out-of-hours pinder service is not paid per callout, but paid to be ready to be called out. So if the new corals just reduce the number of callouts but not completely eliminate them you will still need to pay for both the service and the corals too.
Thats for posting about "cow GPS" just as I was looking for further examples for "geofencing" for a book I am writing, apart from FourSquare. ;-)
Old tech, but this video impressed me - <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@halterhq/video/7504837843571838215" rel="nofollow">https://www.tiktok.com/@halterhq/video/7504837843571838215</a><p>It's more than a virtual fence, it can move them and has health checks / in heat.<p>I don't know if you can split the herd once together but you can manage more mobs, bring them in groups (Like small and large) for milking or feeding.<p>You could be able to tell if they mated as well or ever direct the bull towards heifers that haven't.