Grazing without shifting wire

Rotational and strip grazing both depend on moving cattle, and moving cattle usually means moving fence. eShepherd takes the fence-shifting out of it. You redraw paddocks for rotational or strip grazing without building temporary fence, and the mob goes where the grass is.

There are three ways to do it, from simplest to most automated.

1. Redraw and send

The simplest approach is to draw the next paddock and send it. The mob's neckbands receive the new boundary within minutes, and cattle graze into the fresh area as they find it. You can do this from your phone wherever you are.

For a move to work smoothly, the new paddock needs to connect with the old one so cattle can walk from one to the next. Moves that leave a gap, or that split the mob in two directions, are where things go wrong. Simple shapes and plenty of overlap are the rule.

2. Schedule the rotation

Once you have a rotation that works, you do not need to send every move by hand. You plan the rotation once, as a sequence of paddocks, and the mob shifts to the next paddock at the set time, even when you are away.

Each mob shows its live schedule, its next move and the queue behind it. You can skip a move, pause the sequence or roll the plan forward without redrawing a fence. The same plan can be reused across mobs and seasons.

3. Let the fence move itself

Moving Fence™ takes this a step further. Instead of jumping from one paddock to the next, the fence line itself advances through the paddock on a plan you set, releasing fresh feed as it goes. You draw a two-point line, choose how it moves, and the neckbands work out the rest.

It has three modes:

  • Creep Line. The fence advances in small increments, every second, so grass is released continuously rather than in jumps. You set a distance and a time, such as 100 m over 12 hours.
  • Strip Grazing. Feed is released in breaks at set intervals, the more traditional approach to break feeding. Set it by duration and the neckbands work out the break size, or by release rate, such as 5 m every hour, and they work out the duration.
  • Back Fence. An optional second fence trails behind the front one at a fixed distance, keeping the mob off ground it has already grazed. It works with both Creep Line and Strip Grazing.

The aim is a steady supply of fresh feed rather than one big break a day, which can help lift pasture utilisation, keep bulls more settled and reduce pugging on wet ground. Results vary with the grazing system, the season and management.

Moving Fence needs no additional hardware. It is rolling out in stages as an over-the-air update to existing neckbands and the app, and eligibility conditions apply.

Moving Fence is for trained cattle

Moving Fence should only be used with herds that are already well trained with virtual fencing. Before each use, farmers run through a short welfare checklist: animals healthy and neckbands fitted well, feed and water reachable for the whole plan, no corners or dead ends where cattle could be trapped, and a safe static paddock ready for when the plan finishes. If anything looks wrong, the plan is paused and the mob goes back to a known safe paddock.

Why boundary fences stay

Every one of these approaches works inside your boundary fences, not instead of them. eShepherd replaces internal fencing, not the perimeter, and sound boundary fences are needed. Think of the boundary as the outer edge of the farm and the virtual fence as everything you used to do with tape, standards and wire inside it.

Seeing the result

Grazing heatmaps show where cattle have actually spent their time, by animal, mob or paddock. That makes it easier to see which areas have been grazed hardest and which have rested, and to plan the next move with that in mind.