Casual Cattle Conversations is the podcast for beef cattle producers and ranchers to explore new ideas and hear stories that will help them improve their current management practices. Shaye Koester - Wanner connects listeners to other cattle producers and beef industry experts to discover what management practices, industry trends, current events and inspiring stories are impacting today’s beef cattle industry.
Episodes
3 days ago
3 days ago
On today's show, Shaye Wanner interviews Saskatchewan ranchers John and Deanne about using Vence virtual fencing on their 400 cow-calf commercial operation near the Bronson Forest. They explain how virtual fencing improves utilization on rough, boggy forest lease country where conventional fencing is difficult and expensive, while saving labor, supporting planned/rotational grazing, and helping soil health by controlling stock density and drift with back fences.
They describe added benefits like better monitoring for predation claims, reducing temporary electric fencing on rented land, and sorting groups (heifers, main herd, and open cows) using different virtual fences, achieving about a 95% success rate in a week. They discuss software tools like maps and heat maps, training protocols, cow-to-cow variation in responses, challenges with bull collar retention, collar loss rates improving with tighter fitting, and battery life lasting closer to six months than nine.
Learn more about what Vence could look like on your operation here: https://bit.ly/4kfWrCG
Catch more conversations like this one and learn more at https://www.casualcattleconversations.com/
- 01:01 Biggest Grazing Wins
- 02:42 Why Vence
- 03:30 Ranch and Region Overview
- 06:04 Secondary Benefits and Predators
- 08:24 Sorting Cows with Maps
- 13:31 Software Insights and Training
- 16:42 Heat Maps and Logging Changes
- 19:47 Bulls Learning Curve and Next Steps
- 24:10 Challenges Battery and Retention
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