By Courtney Everett
From just about anywhere on his 400-acre farm, Michael Dolan can follow his cows.
They’re wearing solar-powered collars as they graze on the hilly fields of his farm in Wisconsin’s Driftless region.
“When this technology came out, I was skeptical at first,” he told WPR’s “Morning Edition. “We still have generations five and six living on the farm, so Grandma and my mom weren’t as thrilled about it as I was.”
The seventh-generation farmer introduced a new virtual fence system in February.
Now, from a cellphone or computer, Dolan can draw an invisible boundary line around his 75 collar-wearing cows at Seven Seeds Farm. The herd uses audio tones from the device to know where to graze. If a cow steps too close to the line or crosses it, it gets an electric shock.
Dolan said it was pretty “jolting” for the cows, compared to electric farm fences.
“Instead of getting shocked on its nose or on the tail, it’s right around the neck of the animal,” he said.
But the cows learn quickly. He said 95 percent of the time, they now avoid that jolt by staying in their designated grazing area.
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