# eShepherd: full text corpus

Source: https://eshepherd.com
Generated: 2026-06-13

This file inlines every English article, customer story, use-case
and FAQ entry from eshepherd.com. Markdown / MDX syntax has
been stripped to plain text and locale-specific branches collapsed
to canonical en-AU. The companion index lives at /llms.txt.

eShepherd is a Gallagher virtual fencing system for cattle: a
solar-powered GPS neckband, an optional LoRa base station, and a
web + mobile app that let producers draw paddocks on a map and
move stock without physical fences. Cattle-only. Sold in AU, NZ,
US, CA, UK and Ireland; operating on farms in 20+ countries today.
Welfare protocol is audio-first: a sequence of escalating audio
cues precedes any low-energy electrical pulse, and cattle typically
learn to respond to audio alone in 3–10 days. The training loop
and welfare outcomes are the subject of long-running CSIRO research.

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ARTICLES
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## World’s first virtual fencing code of conduct released
URL: https://www.farmersweekly.co.nz/technology/worlds-first-virtual-fencing-code-of-conduct-released/ (external)
Published: 2026-06-05
Summary: Despite being applied to hundreds of thousands of animals worldwide, the development and use of VFT remains largely unregulated from an animal welfare perspective.

## Manufactured in New Zealand, trusted on farms worldwide
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/manufactured-in-new-zealand
Published: 2026-05-31
Summary: Every eShepherd neckband is designed and built at Gallagher's home in Hamilton, New Zealand. Here's the story behind the gear on your cattle, and why a recent expansion means more of it, sooner.
A farm business, from the start eShepherd is backed by a name a lot of farmers already know. Gallagher started in 1938 in Hamilton, New Zealand, when inventor Bill Gallagher built his first electric fence units. They caught on fast across New Zealand farms, and the business grew from there into one of the country's best-known exporters. Nearly a century on, Gallagher still calls Hamilton home. The campus there is where products are designed, developed and built, all on one site. That tight loop between the people who dream up the gear and the people who make it is a big part of why it holds up in the paddock. Where your neckbands are made eShepherd is built in that same place, to that same standard. Every neckband that ends up on your cattle is designed and assembled at Hamilton, not farmed out to a distant contract factory. It is the same vertical integration that has kept Gallagher's fencing and animal-management gear working in tough conditions for decades, now applied to virtual fencing. That matters when the product lives outdoors, on a moving animal, through every season. It is built by a company that has spent its whole history making farm hardware survive the real world. Proven, and growing fast eShepherd is now in use across more than 14 countries, with strong uptake in North America and Australasia. More than 60,000 neckbands have come off the line in the first half of this year alone, and production is set to double in the second half. The product has been refined and redesigned along the way, shaped by feedback from real farms in very different systems around the world. To keep up with that demand, Gallagher expanded its Hamilton production capacity in 2026. For you, the headline is simple: more neckbands, made sooner, with shorter waits. Why timing matters Getting neckbands when you need them is not a nice-to-have. In a lot of operations there is a narrow window to fit cattle out, and missing it can cost a season. "This makes a huge difference to us being able to compete in current and new markets, and to continue delivering a great experience to our customers as demand grows," says Kate Thomason, Head of Customer & Sales Scaling for eShepherd. "In places like the US and Canada especially, customers are working within pretty tight seasonal windows to get neckbands onto cattle during Spring, so being able to deliver on time really matters." The short version When you put eShepherd on your cattle, you are putting on gear made by a company that has been building for farmers since 1938, in the same New Zealand town where it all began. And there is now more of it, ready when you are.

## How to fund virtual fencing with subsidies and carbon credits
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/funding-virtual-fencing-subsidies-and-carbon-credits
Published: 2026-05-29
Summary: Virtual fencing is a long-term investment. Government conservation programs, cost-share grants and carbon schemes can help pay for it. Here is how the main funding levers work for cattle producers in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, with links to every official program.
Virtual fencing is not a small purchase. Between the neckbands, the base station and the subscription, it is a multi-year investment in how you run your grazing. Our total cost of ownership guide walks through the ten-year number. This guide is about the other side of that ledger: the public programs, cost-share grants and carbon schemes that can help pay for it. There are two underused levers. The first is government conservation and rural-support funding, which in most countries will cost-share the grazing-management, livestock-water and land-protection work that virtual fencing makes practical. The second is carbon and climate funding, which can reward the better grazing that follows. Neither is a guaranteed cheque, and virtual fencing is rarely named in a program on its own. But the practices it enables are exactly what these programs exist to fund. Start with the Farm Subsidy Tracker If you want this narrowed to your own operation, try the Farm Subsidy Tracker, a free AI assistant built on ChatGPT. Tell it where you farm, what you run and what you are trying to do, and it shortlists the programs worth a phone call and points you to the official page. Treat it as a starting point and not as financial advice, and always confirm the details with the program before you apply. How virtual fencing maps to fundable practices Almost no program has a line item that says "virtual fencing." Funding attaches to the practice, not the brand of tool. Virtual fencing usually rides on one of these: Prescribed or rotational grazing. Moving cattle on a planned rotation to rest pasture and lift ground cover. This is the single most common fit. Livestock water distribution. Spreading cattle across a property using water points instead of permanent fences. Riparian and waterway protection. Keeping cattle out of creeks, wetlands and erosion-prone gullies without building fence. Ground cover, soil health and erosion control. Longer recovery periods and better-managed grazing protect soil and can build carbon. When you apply, the honest question to ask the program officer is simple: does virtual fencing qualify as a way to deliver this practice? In many cases the answer is yes, but it is a local call, so ask it directly. The rest of this guide is organised by region, so what you see below applies where you farm. United States US conservation funding runs mainly through two agencies inside the USDA: the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for working-land conservation, and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) for land retirement, disaster help and loans. Start at your local USDA service center, where an NRCS conservation planner can tell you which practices apply on your ground. Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). NRCS cost-share for conservation practices on land in production. Prescribed grazing, livestock water facilities and pipelines, and fencing are all covered practices, and virtual fencing can be a way to deliver a planned grazing system. This is the most common entry point for cattle producers. Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). NRCS payments for maintaining and improving conservation across your whole operation, with enhancements that reward advanced grazing management. Where EQIP funds a project, CSP rewards an ongoing standard of management. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). FSA rental payments for taking environmentally sensitive land out of production or establishing cover and buffers. CREP is the state-partnership version, often targeting riparian buffers where keeping cattle out matters. Disaster assistance. The Emergency Assistance for Livestock program (ELAP) helps with livestock losses and extra costs in events like drought. You can check eligibility with this ELAP decision tool (a third-party tool) and find the official side through the FSA programs page. The Disaster Set-Aside Program (DSA) lets borrowers with FSA farm loans defer a payment after a disaster. Climate-Smart Agriculture Farm Loan Program. An FSA loan pathway that supports producers adopting climate-smart practices, useful when the funding gap is capital rather than cost-share. For the full conservation list, browse the FSA conservation programs page. Signup periods vary by state and by program, so confirm the current window on each page. Canada Federal funding comes through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, often delivered alongside provincial departments under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership. The most grazing-relevant programs are the climate and clean-technology funds, backed by the national business-risk-management suite and provincial lending for newer producers. On-Farm Climate Action Fund. Cost-share for adopting beneficial management practices, including rotational and managed grazing. This is the closest Canadian fit for the grazing change virtual fencing enables. Agricultural Clean Technology Program. Funding to adopt clean technology and improve on-farm energy and efficiency. Business-risk-management suite. AgriInvest (a matched savings account), AgriStability (margin-decline support) and AgriInsurance (production insurance). These do not pay for infrastructure directly, but they stabilise the income that pays for it. Provincial and beginning-farmer lending. Provinces deliver their own programs and loan support. Examples: the Alberta Beginning Farmer Loan Guarantee and Alberta's agriculture funding, Saskatchewan Young Farmer Loans, Ontario's New Entrant program and Agricorp's Risk Management Program, and Manitoba's lending body, the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation. Check your own province's department of agriculture for current cost-share rounds. New Zealand New Zealand support is split between the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) for sector funding, the Ministry for the Environment for freshwater work, and regional councils for on-the-ground grants. Much of the funding targets erosion-prone hill country and waterway protection, which is where managed grazing earns its keep. Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures. MPI's main co-investment fund for projects that solve a problem or test an innovation in the primary sector. It replaced the older Primary Growth Partnership. Hill Country Erosion Programme. Funds regional councils to reduce erosion on pastoral hill country through fencing, planting and land retirement. Directly relevant to controlling where cattle graze. One Billion Trees Programme. Support for tree planting, including on marginal pastoral land. Its grant windows have opened and closed over time, so check the current status before counting on it. Freshwater Improvement Fund. Ministry for the Environment funding for projects that improve freshwater, including stock exclusion and riparian work. Regional council grants. Many councils part-fund fencing, riparian planting and biodiversity work. Examples: Environment Canterbury grants, Waikato's Healthy Rivers work, and the Otago Regional Council biodiversity programs. Start with your own council. Rural Assistance Payments. Income support through Work and Income for farming families during a declared adverse event, such as drought. Māori agribusiness. Te Puni Kōkiri supports Māori landowners developing whenua Māori through its Whenua Māori program, which can apply to pastoral land development. A note on carbon in New Zealand: as of 29 May 2026, pastoral livestock emissions are not priced in the Emissions Trading Scheme. Forestry is. So the realistic carbon play here is registering eligible tree planting, for example on marginal pastoral land, rather than selling grazing soil carbon. Australia Australian support runs through the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the state agriculture departments, and, for carbon, the Clean Energy Regulator. Australia also has the most developed agricultural carbon market of the four countries. Future Drought Fund. Funds programs that build drought resilience, including farm business planning and regional resilience work. Infrastructure that lets you manage grazing and water in dry years fits the theme. Farm Household Allowance. Income support for farming families in financial hardship, with planning support attached. Landcare. The National Landcare Program funds on-ground natural-resource-management work, often delivered through regional bodies and local Landcare groups. Fencing, revegetation and erosion control are common grants. State agriculture departments. Each state runs its own grants and programs. Start with NSW Department of Primary Industries, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Agriculture Victoria, the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, Primary Industries and Regions SA, and the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture. Carbon: the Australian standout. Through the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Clean Energy Regulator runs approved methods, including soil carbon and beef cattle herd management, under which landholders can earn and sell Australian Carbon Credit Units. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is also standing up the Nature Repair Market for biodiversity certificates. For cattle-specific carbon tools and the industry roadmap, Meat and Livestock Australia is a useful resource. Carbon credits, honestly Carbon is the most exciting and the most over-promised funding lever, so be clear-eyed about it. Better grazing can reduce emissions intensity and build soil carbon, and in some markets that turns into payments. How real that is depends on where you farm. The US is cost-share plus private markets. Climate-smart practices are funded through EQIP and CSP enhancements and pilot programs, and a patchwork of private voluntary carbon markets exists alongside them. Canada pays for the practice. The On-Farm Climate Action Fund pays you to adopt the practice now, and a federal greenhouse-gas offset system is being built out with protocols over time. Australia is the strongest. Real credits (Australian Carbon Credit Units) under government-approved soil-carbon and beef-herd methods, with a market to sell them. New Zealand prices forestry, not grazing livestock. The carbon opportunity is tree registration in the Emissions Trading Scheme, not soil carbon under cattle. Three cautions apply everywhere. Credits usually require additionality (you are paid for change beyond business as usual), real measurement and verification (which costs money and takes time), and long commitment periods (often many years, sometimes with permanence obligations). Read the contract, understand who owns the credits, and get independent advice before you sign anything multi-year. A practical playbook The fastest way through all of this is to work the problem in order. Know your numbers. Head count, area, the system you are planning (network type and base stations), and your goal: rotational grazing, riparian protection, drought resilience, soil carbon, or a mix. Map your project to a fundable practice. Use the list above. Virtual fencing is rarely named, so frame it as the way you will deliver prescribed grazing, livestock water distribution, or land protection. Ask the eligibility question directly. Call the program and ask whether virtual fencing qualifies under that practice. It is a local interpretation, and the only way to know is to ask. Talk to the right local office. The right door depends on where you farm. In the United States that is your USDA service center, and in Canada your provincial agriculture office.In New Zealand it is your regional council and MPI.In Australia it is your state department of agriculture, and the Rural Financial Counselling Service can help you navigate options. Diarise the deadline. Rounds open and close. Note the date from the official page and set a reminder, rather than trusting a date you saw once. Stack carefully. You usually cannot fund the same practice twice from two programs. Sequence them, or pair a cost-share grant with a separate carbon agreement, and check the rules on combining funding. If you would rather start with a shortlist, the Farm Subsidy Tracker walks you through steps 1 to 4 in a few questions and hands you the official links to follow up. Where eShepherd fits eShepherd is the grazing-management tool underneath most of these practices. The neckband and base station let you set, hold and move grazing breaks without building permanent fence, which is what makes prescribed rotation, riparian exclusion and proper recovery periods practical on real country. That is the work these programs fund. A sensible order to bring it together: Model a cost-share against your own figures in the ROI calculator. The 50 percent and 75 percent quick-picks show how a grant moves your payback. See the ten-year picture in the total cost of ownership guide. Weigh up the options in how eShepherd compares to other virtual fencing, and read the welfare and training science behind virtual fencing. When you are ready for real numbers, get a quote. A note on accuracy This guide uses publicly available program information and was current as of 29 May 2026. Programs, eligibility rules and application dates change, and some windows open and close through the year. It is general guidance, not legal, tax or financial advice. Always confirm the details with the program administrator on the official page before you apply or sign anything.

## Virtual fencing for cattle: A complete guide for producers
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/virtual-fencing-cattle-guide
Published: 2026-05-06
Summary: How eShepherd virtual fencing works, what it costs, and why producers are using it to manage cattle and pasture.
Fencing is one of the most expensive and labourlabor-intensive parts of running cattle. Posts, wire, strainers, gates, and the time to put them up. Then the time to fix them when a tree falls, a flood goes through, or a bull decides he wants to be somewhere else. Once a fence is up, it stays where you put it. Your country changes with the seasons. Your fence does not. Virtual fencing changes that. Instead of wire, you contain and move cattle from your phone. This guide explains what virtual fencing is, how Gallagher eShepherd works, and why ranchersproducers from large extensive operations to smaller acreageslarge stations to lifestyle blocks are putting it to work. What is virtual fencing? Virtual fencing is a livestock management technology that uses GPS-enabled neckbands and a software platform to contain and move cattle without physical fences. You draw boundaries on a map. The cattle wear neckbands. As an animal approaches a boundary, the neckband plays an audio cue. If the animal keeps going, it gets a brief, low-energy pulse, similar to an electric fence but milder. The result is a fence you can move in seconds, from anywhere, without lifting a post. How eShepherd works eShepherd is Gallagher's virtual fencing system. It uses solar-powered, GPS-enabled neckbands and a web and mobile app to manage cattle remotely. Each animal wears a rugged neckband fitted with GPS, sensors, an EID tag, and a small speaker. You log into the eShepherd app on your phone, tablet, or computer, draw your fences on a satellite map of your ranchproperty, and the boundaries are pushed out to the neckbands. When a cow approaches a virtual boundary, the neckband plays an audio cue. If she turns away, that is the end of it. If she keeps going, she receives a short, low-energy pulse. The cue is consistent and predictable, so cattle quickly learn to respond to the sound and avoid the pulse entirely. Most herds settle into the system within about seven days of training. eShepherd gives you two ways to connect the neckbands. The right choice depends on your country. Cellular connectivity. Each neckband has a SIM and connects directly to the local mobile network using IoT bands designed for rural coverage. No base stations to install. No infrastructure cost. You turn the neckbands on, fit them, and you are running. Gallagher manages the network connection in the background. This option suits ranchesproperties with reasonable cellular coverage and ranchersproducers who want the fastest setup. LoRa base stations. For remote country with patchy or no cellular coverage, eShepherd uses long-range LoRa base stations installed on your ranchproperty. The stations talk to the neckbands over distances of several milesseveral kilometres. This option is built for extensive operations and back country where mobile coverage is unreliable. The neckbands are solar-powered and designed to run for years. They keep working and keep cattle contained even when out of communication range, because the fence boundary is held on the device itself. When the neckband comes back into coverage, it syncs. eShepherd also includes two features built specifically for extensive grazing: Scheduled Move lets you queue up a series of pasturepaddock shifts in advance. Set the dates and times, and the system rotates cattle through the breaks for you. Useful for rotational grazing on large country, weekend shifts, or when you are off the ranchproperty. Panic Detection monitors animal behaviour and disables the virtual fence if an animal bolts or shows signs of distress. The cow gets out of the situation without resistance. Once she settles, the system puts the fence back in place and guides her back. Why ranchersproducers use eShepherd Most cattle operations are constrained by fence. How much you can build. How much you can maintain. How often you can shift it. That constraint shapes how you graze, how many herdsmobs you run, and how much labour you need to throw at the problem. Virtual fencing removes the constraint. With eShepherd, you can break a 2,500 acre pasture1,000 hectare paddock into ten cells and rotate them. You can fence cattle out of a creek line for a season. You can shift a herdmob from the kitchen table at 6am. The fence becomes a setting, not a structure. RanchersProducers report several consistent benefits: More feed out of the same country. Tighter rotations and shorter grazing windows lift utilisation. Some operations have moved from around 50% to 90% pasture use on hill country and rangelands using virtual fencing. Less labour. One person can manage rotations that previously needed a team. Gathering, riding fence, and rolling out portable wireMustering, fence repair, and standing-up portable wire largely disappear. Real-time visibility. Every animal's location is on the map. You know where the herdmob is without driving the fence line. Better land outcomes. Riparian zones, erosion-prone country, and sensitive ground can be fenced out without building anything. Earlier health alerts. Behaviour data flags animals that have stopped moving or are behaving unusually, so you can check on them before a small problem becomes a big one. Virtual fencing vs traditional fencing The differences come down to flexibility, cost structure, and what you do with your time. Traditional fencing High upfront cost in materials and labour Permanent placement, hard to change Ongoing maintenance and repair Days or weeks to build Fixed control over where cattle can go Virtual fencing with eShepherd Buy the hardware once. You own it. Boundaries change in seconds from your phone Solar-powered neckbands, low maintenance Set up and adjust fences instantly Precise control that adapts to conditions A traditional fence puts cattle in one place. eShepherd puts your management in your hand. You own the hardware With eShepherd, you buy the neckbands and base stations outright. They are your equipment. There is no high per-head ongoing subscription that scales with your herdmob size. If neckbands are not on cattle, you are not paying for them. You can scale up when it suits your cash flow, redeploy neckbands across herdsmobs, and treat the hardware as a capital investment. In Australia, capital purchases of eligible business equipment may qualify for the 20% Investment Boost tax deduction. In the US, eligible equipment may qualify for Section 179 expensing or bonus depreciation. Check with your accountant on what applies to your operation. Who eShepherd is for eShepherd works across a wide range of cattle operations. Extensive beef ranchesbeef operations running thousands of head over large country use it to break big pasturespaddocks into smaller cells, rotate without shifting wire, and reduce reliance on gathering crewsmustering teams. Hill country and rough terrain where building and maintaining traditional fence is hard, expensive, or unsafe. Mixed country with sensitive zones that benefit from being temporarily fenced out, including riparian corridors and erosion-prone groundriparian zones, Reef-catchment country, and erosion-prone gullies. Family operations looking to do more with the same labour. One person can manage rotations that used to need two or three. Smaller acreagesLifestyle and smaller blocks where cellular connectivity removes the cost of base stations entirely. Intensive cell grazing operations that want sub-daily moves without being tied to the ranchproperty to walk the wire. eShepherd is purpose-built for cattle and for extensive grazing. The hardware, the connectivity, and the software are designed around the conditions cattle actually live in. Common questions Does virtual fencing hurt the cattle? No. The audio cue comes first. The pulse only happens if the animal ignores the cue and crosses the boundary. The pulse is short and significantly lower energy than a standard electric fence. Most of what cattle experience day to day is sound, not pulse. Animal welfare has been a design priority through every generation of the hardware, and trials have run under animal ethics approval. How long does it take cattle to learn? Most herds learn the system in about seven days. They learn to respond to the audio cue and avoid the pulse, and from then on the cue alone is enough to hold the boundary. What happens if a cow bolts through the fence? The Panic Detection feature picks it up. The neckband sees the unusual movement, the virtual fence is automatically disabled for that animal, and the pulse stops. Once the cow returns to a normal walking pace, the system puts the fence back in place and guides her back to where she should be. What if the neckband loses signal? The fence is held on the neckband itself, so cattle stay contained even outside coverage. The neckband syncs the next time it has signal. This is one of the reasons eShepherd works on country where cellular coverage is patchy. What happens if a neckband runs out of charge? The neckbands are solar-powered and designed to run year-round. In rare cases where one drops below charge, you swap it for a spare and let it sit in the sun. Can I use it without base stations? Yes. The cellular variant connects each neckband directly to the local mobile network. No base stations, no per-station infrastructure cost. If your country has reasonable cellular coverage, this is usually the fastest path to a working system. Does it replace all my fencing? Most ranchersproducers keep perimeter fences and use eShepherd for internal management. You get the security of a physical boundary and the flexibility of virtual fencing inside. Over time, many operations reduce how much internal fence they build and maintain. What does it cost? You pay for the hardware once. Neckband pricing scales with order quantity. Connectivity is either cellular (managed by Gallagher) or your own LoRa base stations. There is no high per-head subscription. Total cost depends on your herdmob size, country, and which connectivity option suits you. Get a quote and we will work through the numbers for your operation. How does eShepherd integrate with the rest of my Gallagher gear? It is built to work alongside Gallagher weigh systems, EID readers, and animal management tools. The neckband includes EID, so individual animals are identifiable end to end. If you already use Gallagher equipment, eShepherd slots into the same ecosystem. How long do the neckbands last? The neckbands are designed for long deployment in the field, with a multi-year warranty. The hardware is built to handle the dust, mud, heat, and wet that cattle live in. What is the learning curve? Most ranchersproducers are confident with the app within an afternoon. Setup is supported by the eShepherd team, and ongoing support is part of the package. Why eShepherd A few things set eShepherd apart. Built by Gallagher. Gallagher has been making livestock fencing and animal management equipment since 1938. eShepherd is the digital extension of that. It is engineered for paddock conditions, supported by a company that has been doing this work for a long time. Two connectivity options. Cellular for fast, low-cost setup where coverage is good. LoRa base stations for remote country where it is not. You pick what fits your ranchproperty. You own the hardware. Capital purchase, no high ongoing subscription, no per-head fee scaling with the size of your herdmob. Your equipment, on your terms. Solar-powered and rugged. Long field life, no battery swaps, built for the weather and the wear that comes with cattle. Real features for real grazing. Scheduled Move for rotational grazing without going back online for every shift. Panic Detection for animal welfare in unexpected situations. Real-time location and behaviour data for every animal. Backed by Gallagher service. Local support, training, and a company that is going to be here for the long haul. The future of fencing Cattle ranchersproducers have always adapted to new tools. Wire was new once. Electric fencing was new once. Virtual fencing is the next step, and it is already in commercial use across operations of every size. If you want to see what eShepherd could do on your country, the next step is a conversation. Tell us about your operation and we will work through whether eShepherd is a fit, what setup makes sense, and what the numbers look like.

## Virtual fencing is now legal in New South Wales
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/virtual-fencing-now-legal-nsw
Published: 2025-12-12
Summary: New South Wales has legalised virtual fencing for cattle. Here is what the December 11 decision means for producers, and why eShepherd expects demand to climb.
It is official: virtual fencing is now legal in New South Wales. From 11 December, cattle producers across the state can use one of the most talked-about tools in modern agriculture: technology that changes how you manage both livestock and land. The announcement was made by Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty at the Orange Agricultural Institute, and it follows years of advocacy and consultation. Victoria announced a similar change just a day earlier, and South Australia is expected to follow. With rural connectivity improving and interest in ag-tech climbing, virtual fencing is set to be a real step change for efficiency, sustainability and profitability. What it means on the ground Virtual fencing has already proven itself in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia, and now NSW producers can join them. It reduces the need for traditional fencing, cuts maintenance and labour costs, and makes precision grazing practical, all while supporting better animal welfare and more sustainable land use. With eShepherd, you draw paddock boundaries on a map and move cattle from your phone. A GPS-enabled neckband guides each animal with an audio cue, and a brief, low-energy pulse only if it keeps walking, so you can split a paddock or shift a mob without driving a single post. A long campaign Member for Orange Phil Donato MP has championed the cause since 2022. He called the decision "great news for our farming community", and said it marks "the start of a new era of farming". Permitting the latest in ag technology allows our farmers to be competitive, productive and to boost on-farm efficiency. It has been a long slog to get to this stage, a journey I have been personally crusading since 2022. I am extremely grateful to the NSW Government, Premier Minns and Minister Moriarty for listening to my calls to modernise the legislation so our cattle farmers can lawfully use virtual fencing in this state. I would like to thank Gallagher for showing me eShepherd in use in Queensland a few years ago when I began researching virtual fencing; it played a huge role in informing me of the benefits and reinforced my commitment to getting it legalised in NSW. A Nundle producer makes the switch For Jared and Suz Doyle, who run a cattle breeding and finishing operation near Nundle, the timing could not be better. The family had budgeted for physical fencing to create smaller grazing plots as part of a carbon program. That money will now go toward eShepherd neckbands instead. It's an exciting time for the cattle industry to have this technology available. Jared told The Land he has followed virtual fencing for nearly a decade, and is keen to see the benefits first-hand: better pasture management, lower overheads and more flexibility. Ready when you are eShepherd is Gallagher’s virtual fencing system for cattle, built by a team that has worked in animal management since 1938. With NSW now open, the local team is expecting strong interest. Caitlin Barnett, eShepherd Regional Lead for Australasia, said the change is a milestone for livestock management: We're absolutely thrilled to see virtual fencing become legal in NSW. This is a huge step forward for livestock management, and we know demand is going to be high. Farmers have been waiting for this moment, so if you're considering eShepherd, now's the time to get in quick and secure your spot. Where to start Get an indicative quote for your own operation with the quote builder. See how virtual fencing works, and why it is welfare-first, on the virtual fencing page. Read how other cattle producers are using it in farmer stories.

## Victoria opens the gate to virtual fencing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/virtual-fencing-approved-victoria
Published: 2025-12-11
Summary: Victoria has approved virtual fencing for commercial use, and Gallagher eShepherd is set to be among the first products through the gate. Here is what the new rules mean for cattle producers, and how to get started.
Victorian cattle producers have been waiting for this one. Virtual fencing has been approved for commercial use in Victoria under the amended Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (POCTA) Regulations 2019, and Gallagher eShepherd is proud to be part of it. The changes commenced on 10 December 2025, after extensive consultation with industry that included Gallagher Animal Management. They open the gate to a smarter, more flexible, and more sustainable way to run cattle. What the new rules allow The updated regulations let approved virtual fencing and herding technologies be used commercially, provided they meet strict animal welfare safeguards. Manufacturers can now apply to Agriculture Victoria for approval. Gallagher eShepherd expects to be among the first approved products, with approval anticipated in early February 2026. This is a game-changer for Victorian cattle producers. eShepherd technology was originally developed in Victoria through in-depth animal behaviour studies by CSIRO, so it feels a bit like a homecoming. Sarah Adams, Gallagher General Manager for Strategy and New Ventures What producers need to do Adopting virtual fencing comes with a clear set of requirements. Producers will need to: use an approved technology complete the manufacturer's training maintain a physical perimeter fence check their collars regularly Gallagher worked closely with the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) throughout the consultation to make sure the framework supports safe, effective technology adoption across Victorian farming systems. We know that Victorian cattle farmers have been eagerly anticipating these regulations, and we're glad they can now harness this cutting-edge technology. These new regulations come with safeguards and clear requirements, providing farmers with smarter tools to manage livestock with precision, boost productivity, and keep animal welfare a top priority. Dr Trevor Pisciotta, Executive Director, Agriculture Victoria Proven well beyond Victoria eShepherd is already leading virtual fencing adoption across Australia, with deployments in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia since 2023, alongside New Zealand, North America and Europe. Thousands of producers are already seeing the difference in their grazing management and their labour bills. The productivity gains are showing up in the numbers, too. In Western Australia, Kent Rochester of KM Farms has recorded weight gains of up to 600g/head/day, worth an extra $2.70 per animal per day at current prices. Flexibility without the fence For Victorian producers, eShepherd means the freedom to draw digital grazing zones without building or shifting a single physical fence. That makes precise, efficient rotational grazing far easier to run, and far easier to change when the season does. It is built with animal welfare at its core, so it helps you focus on what matters most: running a productive, resilient farm. Where to start Gallagher expects strong interest from Victorian producers, and we are ready to help more farmers get set up. The future of livestock management is here, and it is smarter, more sustainable, and built for the challenges ahead. Pick the step that suits you: Register your interest and get pricing for your operation with a quote. See how cattle producers are already using it in farmer stories. New to the idea? Start with how virtual fencing works.

## Beyond the spreadsheet: rethinking ROI for virtual fencing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/virtual-fencing-roi
Published: 2025-07-10
Summary: There isn't one number that captures what virtual fencing is worth. The real return shows up in time, flexibility, pasture, and stock that's easier to manage, and it tends to surprise the people who adopt it. Here's a more useful way to think about the question.
When you're weighing up a new piece of farm technology, the first question, often from your accountant or your bank, is usually the same: what's the return on investment? It's a fair question. With virtual fencing, it's also the wrong one to lead with. A single ROI number is hard to pin down here, because the benefits are more dynamic, more interconnected, and more specific to your operation than a standard payback calculation can hold. That can look like a reason to wait. It's actually a sign of how much the technology changes once it's on the ground. The return is real, but not always where you expect it Virtual fencing isn't a high-tech swap for tape and standards. It changes how you manage stock: move cattle from your phone, split a paddock without driving a post, trial rotational or regenerative grazing, and respond to what's happening in the paddock the same day rather than next week. For a lot of eShepherd farmers, the real value only became obvious after they started. The savings on labour and materials were there, but the returns they talk about most are the ones they didn't forecast: better pasture utilisation, calmer cattle that are easier to handle, fewer injuries, and more headspace at the end of the day. That's the part a traditional ROI line misses. This isn't only about dollars saved. It's about farming with more control. A different lens on value Picture a system that saves you hours of manual work, shows you where your cattle are at any moment, gives you finer control over how pasture gets grazed, and lets you manage all of it from your phone. Virtual fencing does that. But how do you price an extra hour with your family, or the difference between feeling stretched and feeling on top of the season? How do you put a figure on a lighter environmental footprint, or on a mob that's calmer, easier to shift, and putting on weight more evenly? Farmers tell us the benefits that matter most are often the ones a spreadsheet can't hold: more time, and more headspace, at the end of the day cattle that are calmer, easier to handle, and gaining weight more evenly better use of the pasture you already have a lighter environmental footprint So we'd suggest a different starting point. Begin with your biggest frustration, whether that's time, labour, land use, or stock performance, and treat virtual fencing as a tool to chip away at it. Start small, test and learn, and grow from there. The returns tend to follow, and they tend to surprise you. Technology that grows with you Virtual fencing increasingly sits alongside other tools: automatic weighing, satellite and on-ground pasture monitoring, and farm data that finally lives in one place. eShepherd's own Pasture and Vision Weigh add-ons are built on that idea. These tools are worth more together than apart, because each one fills in part of the picture. Here too, the full value shows up over time. Live weight-gain data tells you when to move stock. Pasture data surfaces potential in country you'd written off. And the tools coming next are aimed at doing the interpretation for you, so you get a clear next step instead of another dashboard to read. Changing the question The fact that you can't fully cost virtual fencing in advance isn't a flaw in the technology. It reflects something true about farming: every operation is different, and the parts interact in ways a forecast can't capture. So instead of trying to account for every dollar before you decide, it's worth seeing virtual fencing for what it is: a chance to find new efficiencies, try ideas that fixed fences ruled out, and win back time and headspace for the work that matters most. And across Australia, New Zealand and the United States, the pattern is consistent. Once farmers start using it, the value speaks for itself. So let's move the conversation on, from "what's the ROI?" to "what's possible?" Where to start Pick the question you actually want answered: Put real numbers against your own operation with the ROI calculator. See how other cattle farmers are using it in farmer stories. Ready to talk specifics for your place? Get a quote.

## Virtual fencing after bushfire: a faster path to recovery
URL: https://eshepherd.com/articles/virtual-fencing-fire-recovery
Published: 2024-11-28
Summary: When fire takes the fences, the rebuild is slow and the herd doesn't wait. Virtual fencing puts boundaries back up the day the fire is out, so cattle are managed from day one and the country recovers at its own pace.
A fire goes through and it doesn't just take the feed. It takes the fences. Sometimes miles of them, along with the gates, the water lines, and the infrastructure that took a generation to build. The grass will come back. The fence won't, not without a long wait on a contractor list that every neighbour in the district is already on. Virtual fencing changes the order of operations. With eShepherd you can put boundaries back up the day the fire is out, before a single post goes back in the ground. Draw the lines that match what the country looks like now, lock the cattle off the ground that needs to recover, and let the rebuild happen on its own timeline instead of an emergency one. Boundaries back up the day the fire is out Rebuilding physical fence after a fire is slow, expensive, and often dangerous. Posts have to go into ground that may still be hot. Wire has to be rolled across country that has lost its cover. And the contractors who do that work are booked solid, because every operation around you is in the same position at the same time. eShepherd needs none of that. Cattle wear solar-powered, GPS-enabled neckbands. You draw your boundaries on a satellite map from your phone, and the lines are pushed out to the neckbands. As an animal approaches a boundary it hears an audio cue. If it keeps going, it gets a brief, low-energy pulse, milder than a standard electric fence. The boundary is held on the neckband itself, so it keeps holding even where there is no coverage. No posts, no wire, no waiting. The fence moves at the speed of a decision. Recovery at the rate the country sets Fencing cattle out of burned country is not only about keeping them safe. It is about letting the ground recover. Bare, fire-exposed soil erodes easily and invites weeds, and grazing it too early sets the recovery back by a season or more. With virtual fencing you lock off the fragile country the moment the embers cool, then move the boundary as the grass comes back. Lift the line one paddock at a time, in step with what the ground can actually carry. The country that was hardest hit gets the longest rest. The country that came through stronger goes back into rotation first. Keeping stock off recovering ground protects the topsoil, gives native species room to re-establish, and holds water in the landscape instead of letting it run off bare dirt. Recovery happens at the rate the soil sets, not the rate a fixed fence allows. Lower cost when cash is tightest A fire is a financial hit, and the rebuild lands exactly when money is shortest. Fencing is one of the biggest line items in that rebuild. Virtual fencing takes the internal-fencing cost out of it: there is no contractor bill to reinstate internal subdivisions, and no second bill when you need to change them again next month. With eShepherd you buy the neckbands once and own them. They are not tied to a single paddock layout, so you can redeploy them across the operation as the country recovers and your needs shift. In Australia, eligible equipment purchases may qualify for the 20% Investment Boost tax deduction. In the US, eligible equipment may qualify for Section 179 expensing, and conservation programs may cost-share fencing for post-fire recovery. Check with your accountant or local agency on what applies to your operation. Ready for the next one Fires are not getting rarer. An operation already running virtual fencing comes into the next event with an advantage: the moment it is safe, the boundaries go straight back up, wherever they need to be. The fence is not a fixed structure waiting to burn again. It is a layout you can redraw in minutes, as many times as the season demands. That is the shift. Recovery stops being a matter of waiting for everything to be rebuilt exactly as it was, and becomes a matter of managing the country as it actually is, week to week, until it is back. Where to start Picture the recovery you would want to run, then put the tools against it. See how operations use eShepherd through fire, flood, and drought in Disaster recovery. Understand how the system works end to end in the complete guide to virtual fencing for cattle. Ready to talk about your country? Get a quote.

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## Precision Grazing with eShepherd in Minnesota's Creek Country
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/gravenhof-farm-minnesota
Farm: Gravenhof Farms · Producer: Ryan & Mitch Gravenhof  · Location: Worthington, Minnesota · Operation: Cow calf and cropping
Summary: Cow calf production, cropping, and sheep. All managed with a strong eye toward stewardship, efficiency, and long-term sustainability.
Outcome: Solving challenges that traditional fencing can't especially in creek bottom pastures prone to flooding, erosion, and continuous maintenance.
Quote: "I’ve always had rotational grazing in the back of my mind. But the practicality of cross fencing creek pastures just wasn’t there. When eShepherd came out, I thought, this is the answer."
At Gravenhof Farms near Worthington, Minnesota, cattle have always been part of the family story. Now in its third and fourth generations, the operation includes cow calf production, cropping, and sheep — all managed with a strong eye toward stewardship, efficiency, and long term sustainability. For Ryan and Mitch Gravenhof, adopting eShepherd virtual fencing wasn’t about replacing what already worked. It was about solving challenges that traditional fencing couldn’t — especially in creek bottom pastures prone to flooding, erosion, and continuous maintenance. “I’ve always had rotational grazing in the back of my mind,” Ryan says. “But the practicality of cross fencing creek pastures just wasn’t there. When eShepherd came out, I thought, this is the answer.” Managing Waterways Without Posts and Wire Like many producers across the country, the Gravenhofs farm in areas where waterways shape both the landscape and grazing decisions. Frequent high water events make physical cross fencing difficult to maintain, and even short periods of overgrazing along creek banks can lead to erosion. With eShepherd, the Gravenhofs draw precise virtual boundaries that keep cattle out of sensitive riparian areas while still allowing controlled access to designated watering points. “I’ve been very impressed with how you can draw a line on the app — and how accurate that virtual line is to the actual boundary out in the field,” Ryan explains. “For my initial goals of fencing animals off creeks and riparian areas, it’s been perfect.” That precision has allowed beneficial and native vegetation time to recover, reduced pressure along creek banks, and has opened the door to collaboration with conservation groups — without compromising the farm’s productivity. A Cellular System for Hard-to-reach Pastures One of the deciding factors for the Gravenhofs was connectivity. Their cattle rotate between multiple pastures, crop residue, and cover crop fields, and reliable coverage across all those locations mattered. “People just can’t believe you can do that with a cellular signal,” Ryan says. “But then you show them the map and say, this is the line. It’s amazing how accurate it is.” Because eShepherd operates through the cellular network, the system works across their series of pastures without requiring base stations or added infrastructure — giving the Gravenhofs flexibility as they adapt grazing plans throughout the season. Containment That Builds Confidence. Even at a Distance. For Mitch, one of the biggest benefits has been peace of mind. Instead of worrying about broken wire or deer taking out a single strand fence, he can check cattle location at any time. “If you’re not in the area, you can open the app and see where all the cows are,” Mitch says. “You just know everybody’s where they should be.” That visibility is especially valuable during winter grazing or when cattle are farther from home. Ryan says he checks the app frequently. “I’ll wake up and check it,” he says. “And it’s like, ‘Oh yeah — they’re all in.’” Built for the Long Haul Ryan admits he had questions early on — particularly around fitment and battery life. But those concerns faded quickly once the system was in use. “Battery life was something I was concerned about,” he says. “And it just hasn’t been a problem.” The long life neckbands have required minimal maintenance, even during extended grazing periods. And when questions do come up, Ryan says the learning curve has been manageable. “If it can teach me to do it that easy,” he says, “anybody’s going to be able to learn it.” Looking Ahead: More Rotation, More Opportunity This coming season, all the Gravenhof cattle will be using eShepherd, allowing the family to take a more intentional approach to rotation, to improve utilization of crop residue, and to continue building healthier soils and pastures. “Virtual fencing is going to play a huge role for us,” Ryan says. “Especially as we keep working cover crops and livestock together.” In the Gravenhofs’ case — like many producers across the country — incentive programs and conservation funding helped offset some of the upfront investment. Those opportunities can make adoption easier, particularly when environmental outcomes are part of the goal. But even without that support, Ryan says the return on investment is proving out. “Even if I hadn’t gotten the grant,” he adds, “I still think I would have done it.”

## The feedback loop your grazing system has been missing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/kilmister-wairarapa
Producer: Dion Kilmister · Location: Wairarapa, NZ · Operation: Beef finishing · eShepherd + Auto Weigher
Summary: eShepherd controls where cattle graze. The Auto Weigher measures how they respond. Together — a real-time feedback loop on every grazing decision.
Outcome: 14 tonnes of feed grown, utilisation lifted from 78% toward 95%. A drop from 1.5 kg/day to 0.2 kg/day caught in days, not weeks.
Quote: "We managed our entire grazing operation remotely from the Gold Coast, shifting virtual fences and making feed decisions daily based on live weight data."
When Wairarapa beef farmer Dion Kilmister adopted eShepherd virtual fencing, his goal was straightforward: manage a substantial herd across expansive paddocks without adding labour. Adding the StrongBó Auto Weigher to the picture turned that into something more valuable. A real-time feedback loop between where the cattle were grazing and how they were actually performing. Insight and action, without extra boots on the ground. Better together eShepherd is Gallagher's virtual fencing system. The StrongBó Auto Weigher is Gallagher's voluntary in-paddock weighing system where cattle approach it on their own terms, enticed by an attractant. An EID reader captures each animal's ID and the platform calculates full body weight. Where eShepherd controls where cattle graze, the Auto Weigher measures how they respond. From instinct to data Historically, weight data comes from periodic yarding — maybe once a month, sometimes less. By the time underperformance shows up, weeks of growth can already be lost. Dion knows exactly how costly that lag can be. Before adopting both systems, he estimates his operation was growing around 14 tonnes of feed but utilising only 78%. At one point, cattle dropped from 1.5 kg/day to 0.2 kg/day when a crop ran out and monthly manual weighing didn't catch it in time. A whole month of liveweight gain was gone. Proof of concept, by accident When Dion and his wife Ali had to spend six months in Australia for medical treatment, the systems became an unexpected proof of concept. They managed their entire grazing operation remotely from the Gold Coast. "We managed our entire grazing operation remotely from the Gold Coast, shifting virtual fences and making feed decisions daily based on live weight data." The same principle worked for Simon Fowler at Chilwell Farms in Western Australia. Simon used eShepherd to create virtual confinement pens for controlled feeding during dry conditions saving the cost of physical infrastructure. Tracking weight performance alongside that through the Auto Weigher let him verify the approach was working, or pivot quickly if it wasn't. Welfare oversight, without the legwork For Dion, managing remotely meant welfare monitoring had to work without him being there. The Auto Weigher provided that safety net. A drop in weight gain, a change in visit frequency, or an animal that stops approaching voluntarily are all early indicators that something is off. Combined with GPS location and movement data from eShepherd, producers have a much richer set of signals for identifying animals that need attention, all without additional handling or observation time. The labour equation Moving physical fences takes time. Mustering for weighing takes time and stresses animals in ways that compromise the data. Both require staff on the ground. eShepherd removes the first. The Auto Weigher removes the second. For operations already stretched on labour, or managing large areas with lean teams, this isn't a minor convenience, it's a fundamentally different way of working. When conditions change When feed quality drops or a dry period hits, weight data is often the first reliable signal. Rather than waiting for visible condition loss, producers can act on the numbers — adjust cell size, shift mobs to better feed, increase rotation frequency. eShepherd makes the move simple. The Auto Weigher confirms whether it worked. For operations in variable seasonal conditions, that speed of response is measured in days, not weeks, and can mean the difference between managing through a difficult period and losing ground that takes months to recover. The bigger picture The data doesn't just improve today's decisions, it builds a record that makes next season's sharper. Which rotations consistently deliver target growth rates. Which paddocks underperform in dry conditions. Which mobs respond best to intensive cell grazing. That kind of compounding insight is difficult to build any other way. For producers already using eShepherd, the Auto Weigher is the logical next step. Not as a separate system, but as the performance layer that tells you whether the grazing decisions you're making are actually working.

## Regenerative grazing with virtual fencing in Western Australia
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/kevin-nettleton-wa
Farm: Nettleton Limousin Stud · Producer: Kevin Nettleton · Location: South West, WA, Australia · Operation: 50 Limousin cows + 13 yearling heifers
Summary: Limousin breeding stud running cattle, chickens and regenerative pastures in WA's south west.
Outcome: Pasture surplus where there used to be a shortage. Calving monitored from the kitchen. Mustering done by drawing on a phone.
Quote: "Our cows and calves have never done as well as they have since we've had eShepherd."
In the sandy soils of southwest Western Australia, just over two hours south of Perth, Kevin Nettleton and his sons Ewen and Campbell are transforming the way they manage their Limousin cattle stud. With fifty breeding cows and thirteen yearling heifers, they are a small operation by Australian standards but running on the principle that smarter management beats more hectares. From struggle to surplus After years of battling poor pasture growth, Kevin made the shift to regenerative farming. "We've traditionally struggled for grass over the last three years. Now, we have a surplus which is unbelievable." The change wasn't just about grazing strategy. Youngest son Ewen introduced chickens into the rotation, moving them daily through the paddocks behind the cattle. Their manure has supercharged pasture regrowth. Fresh feed reaches shin height within three weeks during the growing season. The virtual fence drops in Kevin adopted eShepherd for the breeding cows. Reactions on first fitting ranged from calm acceptance to brief bucking; the animals adapted within days. "There wasn't any lengthy training. They just responded to the audio warnings. We haven't had any cross the virtual fence." Oldest son Campbell now runs the rotation through virtual paddocks. Stock move precisely, wet areas get protected during winter, and animals funnel through laneways to the yards. All without lifting a single polywire. "It's been a game changer for us." Calving without standing in the paddock Calving runs from March to June. Cows start in physical paddocks under close supervision; once calves are on the ground, the herd transitions to virtual paddocks and Kevin watches the data. "You could be lying in bed, turn on the app, and see a cow off on her own. Most of the time, she's calving or has just calved. It's a very easy way to check without having to be there all the time." As calves grow they range further. Kevin recently spotted a group of fourteen calves grazing 150 metres from their mothers, all relaxed and settled, with the cows resting nearby. A leader emerges Kevin's cows have learned to read the system. "We just change the fences and they move accordingly. We've got a cow called T16, she's an ultimate leader. She knows when the fence has been shifted and brings the rest of the mob with her." Virtual laneways guide cattle to the yards for vet work and mustering. "Previously, you'd spend frustrating time on a quad trying to get them in. Now, it's easy. Once they're used to it, they don't go where they're not supposed to." What it does for the country Despite operating in low-lying ground with variable weather, Kevin hasn't had issues with battery life or connectivity. "We've just been changed over to 5G. We get one bar and have no issues." Even in wet seasons, the system helps him exclude waterlogged areas and protect soil structure. Why eShepherd works for the Nettletons Precision grazing across mixed soil types and leased land Improved cow and calf condition through rotational grazing Seamless integration with regenerative practices, including poultry Reduced stress and labour during calving and mustering For Kevin, eShepherd isn't just a tool. It's a transformational shift in how he manages his stud. "It just makes management so much easier. It's fabulous."

## Precision grazing with eShepherd in Alberta's drylands
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/nick-kunec-alberta
Producer: Nick Kunec · Location: Bonnyville, Alberta, Canada · Operation: 300 cow ultra-high-density mob
Summary: Ultra-high-density rotational grazing on dry Alberta country — 300 animal units, four moves a day, half-acre paddocks.
Outcome: Avoided destocking through five sub-10-inch rainfall years. Brush cleared without sprays. Calves born on lush rest paddocks.
Quote: "It meant I could move four times a day on half-acre paddocks with about 300 animal units. That's 600,000 to 700,000 pounds per acre."
Nick Kunec didn't grow up on a farm. But when he took over his family's land in 2017, he brought a fresh perspective and a bold vision for regenerative agriculture. By 2019 he had transitioned the operation, introducing cover crops and moving toward organic certification. The grazing system was the piece that transformed everything else. "Grazing is probably one of the most important things to have a successful operation. Especially in our environment." Located in the unpredictable, often challenging climate of Bonnyville, Alberta, where annual rainfall has been under 10 inches for the past five years, Nick has learned to make every drop count. From fences to flexibility Nick's introduction to eShepherd started with an internet search. He reached out to every supplier he could find, liked what the eShepherd team offered, and took the plunge. The shift from labour-intensive electric fencing to a precision virtual system unlocked ultra-high-density grazing without physical barriers. "It meant I could move four times a day on half-acre paddocks with about 300 animal units. That's 600,000 to 700,000 pounds per acre. It creates a competitive environment for forage, which encourages the cows to graze more evenly and consume a wider variety of plants." Managing drought with precision In a region where rainfall is unpredictable, Nick uses eShepherd to intensify grazing on his most productive ground and extend rest periods across the rest. Pastures recover even during dry spells. "As you compress your farm into smaller chunks, you increase utilisation and rest everywhere else. Eventually it will rain, and when it does, those rested areas are ready." This approach has let him avoid destocking through drought which is something many of his neighbours have had to do. "I'm actually looking to buy more cows. It's not going to work for every animal, but with the right genetics and management, it's a game-changer." Clearing brush with cattle power Nick uses his "300 cow power mob" to take on brush encroachment that used to require sprays or mechanical clearing. By grazing dense, brushy zones, the cattle knock back invasives, open the canopy, and create conditions for grass to return. "It's just a pain to try and put an electric fence through that kind of terrain. But with eShepherd, I can run strips through the bush and get the impact exactly where I want it. It's some of the coolest grazing I've done." He's seen it work. "You get sunlight, you get manure, and suddenly there's opportunity for grass to grow where it never did before. It's slow, but the potential is unbelievable." Adapting the herd Training was quick at under a day. Even his "fence-crawler" heifer, known for escaping electric fences, stayed with the herd all season. Nick is also selecting genetics that thrive under his system. "Over time, I'm building a herd that's epigenetically adapted to this way of grazing." The calves don't wear collars and that's not a problem. They stay close to the cows when small, then range further as they grow. "Now there are calves half a mile away. They're everywhere." The cows stay calm and the herd stays contained. Visually the calves look strong and Nick is waiting for the scale to confirm it. More time for life With the eShepherd web app, Nick draws paddocks, schedules moves, and occasionally gets creative. "I drew a heart in the pasture just to see if it would show up on Google Maps. It did." The flexibility has freed him up. A recent trip to Manitoba and Vancouver saw him pre-schedule eight or nine moves before leaving. "It was like I never left." Looking ahead As winter approaches, Nick is testing eShepherd in low-light, snowy conditions, looking at whether cattle can graze beneath the snow in a controlled way and reduce bale feeding. "If we can graze all winter, we'd save a fortune." For Nick, eShepherd is a catalyst. "You can use these animals to impact the land in a way that pushes it forward. It's about working with nature, not against it. That's the future I want to be part of."

## Precision cell grazing on a Taranaki river flat
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/hardwick-smith-taranaki
Producer: George Hardwick-Smith · Location: Taranaki, NZ · Operation: 200 R1 Bulls · 10 mobs · 120 cells per mob
Summary: Turning a hard-to-manage 30 ha river flat into a streamlined, high-performing bull beef block.
Outcome: Weekly mob shifts that used to take a day take 40 minutes — drawn on a laptop, executed remotely.
Quote: "I can be in beautiful sunny Wanaka… just sit down and do it. It makes it really easy."
In the productive pastures of Taranaki, George Hardwick-Smith is quietly redefining what smart, efficient grazing looks like. With eShepherd virtual fencing, what was once a hard-to-manage river flat is now a streamlined, high-performing bull beef block. George's story isn't about flashy tech. It's about solving real problems on a real farm, like how to make the most of land without the cost and hassle of new fencing. Transforming remote land into productive pasture George had a choice: sink serious money into rebuilding fences across 30 hectares, or try something different. "We thought we'd have a crack with virtual fencing… did a bit of cost analysis and decided it was worth it." Using eShepherd neckbands, George implemented a precision cell grazing system on 200 R1 bulls. The structure: 10 mobs, 120 cells per mob. Highly targeted grazing, with shifts planned and scheduled weekly for each morning, drawn on a laptop and executed remotely, even when he's on holiday. "I can be in beautiful sunny Wanaka… just sit down and do it. It makes it really easy." Time saved, control gained What used to require frequent manual shifts and travel now takes about 40 minutes a week. "If you're going down to each paddock and shifting 10 mobs once a day for a week… that's going to take a lot longer than 40 minutes." Daily automated shifts mean consistent animal behaviour, better utilisation, and healthier pastures — especially during spring when compensatory growth kicks in. Calm bulls, clean breaks Despite less hands-on time, George's bulls have stayed calm and settled. "I was a little surprised. They're still quite quiet, even with very little human interaction. I think having them in small mobs really helps." Within a few days the cattle adapt. Clean grazing lines and clear routines follow. Profit, not just precision George's data-driven approach is paying off with returns well above industry averages. But he's realistic about how to get there. His tips for new users: Start small and build confidence Make sure your water setup is solid Spend time learning the platform before scaling up For George, eShepherd isn't about changing everything. It's about making what he already does better.

## Cropping and cattle, finally on the same calendar
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/chilwell-farms-esperance
Farm: Chilwell Farms · Producer: Simon Fowler · Location: Condingup, Esperance, WA, Australia · Operation: 2,000 Angus + 30,000 ewes on 50,000 ha
Summary: 50,000 hectares of cropping integrated with cattle and sheep — virtual fencing brought the rotation cattle never had.
Outcome: Rotational cells inside 150-ha cropping paddocks. Virtual confinement pens built without a single post. Welfare alerts that catch trouble the same hour it happens.
Quote: "We've only been using eShepherd since January, but it has been a game changer for us."
An expansive cropping and finishing operation covering 50,000 hectares in Western Australia is using eShepherd virtual fencing to enhance crop and animal health and productivity. Chilwell Farms, in Condingup near Esperance, is primarily dedicated to cropping wheat and canola. It also runs 2,000 head of Angus cattle (grass finishing about 1,500 yearlings each year) and 30,000 ewes. In January 2024, Simon Fowler adopted eShepherd to manage cattle on his cropping land, aiming to lift both crop and pasture performance and animal productivity. "We've only been using eShepherd since January, but it has been a game changer for us." What it replaced Before, cattle free-ranged the farm's 150-hectare paddocks. "Along with having no real control of our cattle in the large paddocks, they would undergraze or overgraze areas and there was no time for pasture regeneration. The lack of efficient grazing was impacting our crop and soil management and meant we weren't getting the most out of our cattle either." Rotation inside the cropping paddocks eShepherd let the Fowlers control cattle with precision, implementing rotational grazing cells inside each 150-hectare paddock. Mobs are rotated weekly through 50-to-60-hectare cells, ensuring even grazing of residual crop and summer crops, and better cattle management. Simon plans to intensify the pattern over time. "Using eShepherd we have implemented the rotational grazing system. Our mobs are shifted seamlessly, taking the manual labour out of moving cattle and making both our crop and cattle management far more efficient." Within five days of fitting the neckbands, Simon was surprised to see his mob contained behind the virtual fence. "You could see them standing there, but they were contained within the virtual fence we had created. The system has definitely helped achieve more even grazing and better recovery for our crops and pastures." Wet ground, regen bush, water access Simon also uses eShepherd to fence off wet, under-germinated, or regenerating bush areas inside paddocks. "It's so simple. You just draw the line where the fence needs to go. We have dams in the paddocks for water, so we draw the line so the cattle still have access to the water no matter where they are in the paddock." Welfare oversight, in real time eShepherd's alerts have also proved invaluable for animal welfare. "We get alerts if one of the cattle hasn't been moving. Recently I received an alert and found a steer with his head stuck in a tree fork. Before eShepherd, I wouldn't have known what was happening with that animal until it was too late." Confinement pens without the build Simon now uses neckbands to make virtual confinement pens — currently 500 steers on 8 hectares. "This allows both controlled feeding and deferred pasture grazing, both important in a year like this where we have had a very dry start. So far it's working well for this purpose and has saved on the cost of building a physical pen." Simon's next goal is to fine-tune grazing strategies further and integrate more automated processes. The local grower group ASHEEP and BEEF has been following his work closely. "eShepherd has definitely enhanced our ability to manage our cattle on our cropping land, improving our efficiency, animal welfare, and productivity."

## Twenty break fences a day became zero
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/gardner-south-canterbury
Producer: Nigel & Gina Gardner · Location: South Canterbury, NZ · Operation: 800 dairy heifers · 150 jersey bulls · 90 beef steers
Summary: Intensive heifer grazing across 350 ha — Nigel used to move twenty break fences a day. Now he moves zero.
Outcome: Mobs shifted from a phone, even from a holiday in Australia. More brain space for the rest of the business.
Quote: "It worked perfectly. I checked with my farm manager and the mobs had moved onto the new breaks no issues at all."
For South Canterbury dairy graziers Nigel and Gina Gardner, spending hours moving break fences every day is a thing of the past thanks to Gallagher's virtual fencing solution, eShepherd. The couple operates an intensive grazing operation across 350 hectares with up to 800 dairy heifers, 150 jersey bulls for breeding, and a small herd of 90 beef steers. Pasture management is everything "We have more fences than the average grazier because we run our dairy grazers in smaller mobs so we can focus on getting great growth rates for our clients." "I used to be a dairy farmer, so I know where heifer weights need to be and I don't want to be sending anything back that I'm not happy with." Nigel was moving up to 20 break fences a day. Looking for a better way, he found eShepherd, and started in October 2023 with 150 grazing heifers. Half a day to learn "It was amazing to see how easily and quickly the cows adapted. The biggest job was actually unpacking all the neckbands, activating each one and getting them turned on. As far as putting them on the animals and getting the virtual fencing working, within half a day, the heifers knew what was going on." Pasture is the backbone "How we manage our pasture is key. I can't have mobs free-ranging and burning up pasture because then I end up needing a lot more supplement, which can be costly. Home-grown pasture is the most efficient feed, so we need to be smart about how we use it." Work-life balance "I'm not out there winding up electric fences or moving electric fences every day. In the eShepherd app, I remove, add and create breaks several days in advance and activate them daily or as necessary at the touch of a button. It's that easy." The couple put it to the test on a long weekend. Nigel programmed the breaks before they left, and rather than ask the farm manager, activated the moves himself from the holiday location. "It worked perfectly. I checked with my farm manager and the mobs had moved onto the new breaks no issues at all." Grass at any hour "Using eShepherd means I can move mobs at any time of the day or night depending on the feed that's available. While I'm having breakfast, I use my phone to move the two mobs that have eShepherd neckbands. When I'm out moving those that are behind a traditional electric fence, I quickly check on my eShepherd mobs to make sure they have moved themselves and they're happy. Over time as we get used to the new technology, I won't feel the need to do that anymore." Gina says eShepherd is saving them time and freeing up brain space to oversee the business in a different way. "We have been away a couple of times since introducing eShepherd and Nigel's been able to see what's happening on farm, even though he's not here. It gives us real peace of mind." The Gardners can see the potential to share data from eShepherd with heifer owners — reassuring them about their animals' progress while they're off-farm for grazing. What's next After five months of eShepherd, Nigel and Gina plan to expand the virtual fencing solution across their operation as investment allows. "We've had so much positive feedback from our business partners, clients, and the farming community about the results we're getting with eShepherd. There is so much potential for technology to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of our farm we would be silly not to consider rolling it out further."

## Protecting the Great Barrier Reef catchment, without a single post
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/strathalbyn-station
Farm: Strathalbyn Station · Producer: Bristow Hughes · Location: Burdekin River catchment, QLD, Australia · Operation: 577 Wagyu-cross female beef cattle
Summary: Eliminating fencing infrastructure to protect waterways flowing to the Great Barrier Reef.
Outcome: Cattle held off riparian zones during regrowth. Underutilised pasture brought back into rotation. Project funded by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
Quote: "We're protecting the catchment without putting a single post in the ground."
eShepherd might be the next evolutionary step in pasture management, but one of our most consequential trials tested its impact on protecting one of the world's oldest natural treasures, the Great Barrier Reef. Led by Kevin Fischer (Head of Finance and Operations for eShepherd) and Andrew Zipsin (Applications and Customer Support Leader), Gallagher worked on a project funded by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Strathalbyn Station, owned by the Wentworth Cattle Co, to look at ways of protecting the Reef from sedimentation run-off using virtual fencing. The set-stocking problem Strathalbyn Station sits along the Burdekin River near Dalbe in Queensland. The dominant grazing practice in the catchment is set stocking where animals graze the same area year-round. The most fertile soils are near the waterways, so cattle congregate there. Country further out goes underutilised; the grass becomes stale and unpalatable. Overgrazing closest to the water leaves topsoil bare and exposed, and during the wet season it washes downstream. Until now, the cost and feasibility of conventional fencing has been prohibitive for large Australian properties. With few options, farmers keep operating with traditional, destructive practices. What changed In April 2021, 577 eShepherd neckbands were fitted to Wagyu-cross female beef cattle. For the first time, the manager could control where the herd grazed at scale and without a wire. Cattle were held in the underutilised areas, eating what they could and trampling the rest, while fertilising the ground. Intensified animal activity followed by periods of rest stimulated intense regrowth and in turn made those previously unpalatable areas the sweetest next time animals were brought through. The riparian zones got rest. The underutilised country got attention. Over time the practice improves the health of the pasture across the property, leading to better moisture retention and ground cover which is the best defence against sediment runoff into the river system. Result The trial closed out with the eShepherd system clearly delivering the desired outcomes. By holding the animals in allocated areas, the pasture regeneration objectives were met. In his close-out interview, Strathalbyn Station owner Bristow Hughes said he "believes that the correct application of this technology has the potential to transform and protect the landscape in the region, whilst achieving substantial gains in productivity and profitability." Gallagher and Strathalbyn have committed to future trials evaluating eShepherd's potential for more complex applications in the catchment.

## Eight mobs of bulls, drawn on a phone
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/mangatarata-station
Farm: Mangatarata Station · Producer: Mathew & Gemma Barham · Location: Hawkes Bay, NZ · Operation: 8 mobs of bulls
Summary: Precision bull grazing at scale on Hawkes Bay hill country.
Outcome: Cattle on their new break by 7am every morning. Saved labour, tighter rotations, no posts driven for 18 months.
Quote: "It's amazing how quick the cattle learn to stay behind the line."
Mathew and Gemma Barham run beef cattle across 1,020 ha of steep Hawkes Bay hill country. The land doesn't lend itself to permanent fencing because the slopes that need rotating are the slopes nobody wants to drive a post into. Eight mobs of bulls have to land in the right paddock at the right time, and on a working farm there isn't time to wait. How it actually fits into a working week "I schedule the break for all 8 mobs to update at 6am every morning. By the time I'm driving around the farm, they are already on their new break every morning by 7am." The boundaries get redrawn the night before, the neckbands receive the update over cellular while the team's still in the kitchen, and the mobs are on their new break before the first ute leaves the shed. What changed Eight mobs, all on rotation, planned from the same map. Audio-first welfare the cattle learnt the sound cue inside seven days. Pulses are rare and low-energy. Country we used to write off the steep faces above the river are now part of the rotation, not the "leave it til December" patch. The Barhams aren't replacing a single working fence. They're fencing country that never had one, on a schedule that never used to be possible.

## Freeing up labour to graze more intensively
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/las-islas-ranch
Farm: Las Islas Ranch · Producer: Vannie Collins · Location: Texas, USA · Operation: Extensive beef
Summary: Freeing up labour to graze more intensively across Texas country.
Outcome: Three full-time roles redirected from fence maintenance to herd management. Moves that used to take a day take an hour.
Quote: "eShepherd has really freed up a lot of my labor and allowed me to more intensively manage."
Las Islas Ranch sits across Texas brush country. Mesquite, live oak, red-brown soil, and a kind of distance that makes a single fence run feel like a week's work. Vannie Collins runs an extensive beef operation that used to revolve around staying on top of barbed wire. What it replaced For Las Islas, fencing wasn't expensive because the wire is expensive. It was expensive because every storm meant another day of repairs, every brush fire meant another stretch to rebuild, and every rotation meant another gate that somebody had to drive thirty miles to open. "eShepherd has really freed up a lot of my labor and allowed me to more intensively manage." The neckbands went on the cattle in the yards. The boundaries went onto a phone. The crew that used to drive line stopped driving line. What it added Tighter rotations. Country that used to get one long graze now sees the cattle move through in eight or nine breaks. Wildlife corridors stay open. No physical barrier means deer, hogs, and quail still move how they always did. Compliance audit, easy. Every animal's location is recorded; every move is timestamped. It hasn't fixed everything. Texas is still Texas, the brush is still the brush, but the labour that used to pour into wire now pours into cattle.

## Rotational grazing at scale across native prairie
URL: https://eshepherd.com/stories/jorgensen-land-cattle
Farm: Jorgensen Land & Cattle · Producer: Nick Jorgensen · Location: South Dakota, USA · Operation: 1,500 Angus
Summary: Rotational grazing at scale across 15,000 acres of native prairie.
Outcome: Mob moves now happen in 30 minutes instead of two days. Six sub-paddocks per quarter section, all on a single map.
Quote: "We decided to leverage virtual fencing because of the physical and logistical challenges of implementing rotational grazing at scale."
Jorgensen Land & Cattle is 15,000 acres of native prairie in South Dakota. 1,500 Angus, big sky, no permanent fence on the rotation paddocks. The prairie grasses respond to managed grazing with short, intense impacts then long rest periods. Doing that at scale, the conventional way, would mean miles of temporary wire and a crew that does nothing but move it. The problem with conventional rotation "We decided to leverage virtual fencing because of the physical and logistical challenges of implementing rotational grazing at scale." The math on physical fencing is brutal: every paddock subdivision is a wire job, every move is a labour job, and the country itself fights you — frost heaves, washouts, badger holes, prairie grass reclaiming posts inside two seasons. What's running now Six breaks per quarter section that used to be one big graze. 30-minute mob moves drawn on the map, with the cattle trained inside two weeks. Cover targets met. Pre-graze and post-graze residuals tracked through Pasture (the satellite biomass add-on that pairs with eShepherd). The key thing for Nick wasn't the technology. It was that the rotation finally matched what the prairie actually needs, instead of what the fence budget allowed.

## Among the first in Canada to use digital fencing
URL: https://www.castanetkamloops.net/news/Penticton/517453/A-win-for-the-industry-Keremeos-ranch-pairs-up-with-TRU-student-to-be-among-first-in-Canada-to-utilize-digital-fencing (external)
Farm: Barrington Ranch Ltd · Crater Mountain · Producer: Matt Quaedvlieg · Location: Keremeos, BC, Canada · Operation: 150 head of cattle on 7,500 ha
Summary: Castanet Kamloops covers Barrington Ranch's partnership with a TRU student to be among the first in Canada to roll out eShepherd virtual fencing.
External news coverage. Click through to the full article on Castanet Kamloops.

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USE CASES
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## Disaster recovery
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/after-the-disaster
Subhead: Fire, flood, cyclone, drought. Different events, one common problem. The fencing's gone or the country's changed, and the herd doesn't wait. eShepherd holds the boundaries while the rebuild happens.
Summary: Bushfire, flood, cyclone, drought. When the fencing's gone or the country's changed, eShepherd holds the boundaries while the rebuild happens.
Disaster looks different every time. The list of what's broken is often the same. Fencing. Sometimes miles of it. Pasture, either burned, scoured, or refusing to grow. Water lines, gates, lanes, mustering yards. The infrastructure that took a generation to build, settled in a day. And through all of it, a herd that still needs feed, still needs containment, and still needs to be kept off the country that's trying to recover. The traditional answer was to wait. Wait for fencing contractors, who are usually booked solid because every neighbour is in the same situation. Wait for pasture to come back. Wait for the season to turn. The herd waits with you, on whatever ground you have left, while the operation absorbs the cost of standing still.

Boundaries up the day the event ends. With virtual fencing you don't have to wait. Draw the lines that match what the country looks like now, not what it looked like before the fire came through, before the river rose, before the season broke. Lock off the country that needs to recover. Open up the country that can carry feed. No posts to drive into hot ground. No wire to roll out across scoured paddocks. No waiting on a contractor list that's two months long. The fence moves at the speed of a decision, and the rebuild happens in the background on its own timeline.

After a fire, the fragile country gets locked off the moment the embers cool. Recovering pasture. Native regrowth. Exposed topsoil. All of it stays cattle-free without a single post going in. As the grass comes back, the boundary moves with it. Lift the line one paddock at a time, in lockstep with what the ground can carry. The country that was hardest hit gets the longest rest. The country that came through stronger goes back into rotation first. Recovery happens at the rate the soil dictates, not the rate the contractor schedule allows.

After a flood or cyclone, the river didn't just take the fences. It changed the country. Drainage lines moved. Gullies opened where there weren't any. The riparian buffer washed through and reshaped. Cyclone country comes out the same way — scoured, rearranged, infrastructure flattened. The boundary that was right last week is wrong this week. Redraw it to fit the new contour, not the old one. Pull cattle off the unstable banks where the river's still finding its new line. Open up the country that came through intact. Nothing left to wash out the next time it rains hard, and the rebuild on the permanent infrastructure can take its time.

In a drought, the constraint flips. The feed isn't where the fences are. The feed is in the back country. On the neighbour's stubble. On the leased grazing that opened up an hour away because the previous tenant gave up. Boundaries follow the feed, not the layout. A single mob moves across whatever country comes online, faster than any contractor could fence it, and the agistment that was uneconomic to fence becomes the agistment that pays back inside a season. When the rain comes, the system reverses. Pull the mob back. Lock off the recovering country. Let the response happen without grazing pressure.

The herd keeps moving. The country keeps recovering. The operation stays alive. Fencing contractors will get to it. Pasture will come back. The river will settle. The drought will break. None of that happens on a schedule the herd respects, and the cost of waiting compounds with every week the operation runs on holding ground. eShepherd takes the wait out of the recovery. The grazing is managed from day one. The recovery happens without grazing pressure on the country that can't take it. The herd ends up better through the event than it would have otherwise, and the rebuild gets done on a real timeline instead of an emergency one.

The country breaks. The system holds the line until it comes back.

## Rotational grazing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/rotational-grazing
Subhead: More paddocks, more rest, more growth, more cattle. Every rotational operator knows the maths. Few can fence it. eShepherd takes the fencing cost out of the equation.
Summary: How rotational graziers use eShepherd to double their paddock count without doubling their fencing cost. Recovery clocks against cover, not against the calendar.
Rotational grazing is one of the most studied systems in pasture management. The principle has been settled for half a century. More subdivision means longer rest. Longer rest means more growth. More growth means more cattle. The relationship is mechanical and the operator knows it. The constraint has always been the fencing. Every paddock you want to add is another contractor visit, another quote, another conversation about whether the marginal cell justifies the marginal cost. The rotation you want to run is rarely the rotation you can afford to fence. So twelve paddocks become twelve paddocks for the next twenty years, and the rotation drifts toward what the layout allows rather than what the country needs. The other constraint is timing. A rotation that runs on schedule produces consistent results. A rotation that runs late — because the manager couldn't get out to shift the mob on the day the rest period closed — produces inconsistent results. Across a season, the slippage compounds. Across a decade, the slippage is the difference between a rotation that's nominally in place and one that actually works.

Twelve paddocks become twenty-four. Then forty-eight. Then whatever the country needs. Subdivide on the phone. Draw the cells to fit what the country is doing, not what the existing fencelines carve up. Move the mob through them on schedule, whether you're at the next paddock or in the next country. The system holds the rotation even when the manager's day breaks open. Cell shifts happen on time because the platform makes them happen on time. The infrastructure cost of additional subdivision drops to zero, which means the question stops being "can we afford to subdivide" and starts being "what subdivision does the country actually want." That's a different conversation.

A real rotation responds to the country, not the calendar. Rest period is measured in cover, not in days. eShepherd makes that measurable. Cover at entry, cover at exit, days of rest, return interval — all recorded automatically, per cell, per season. The rotation that used to live in the operator's head, in a notebook on the kitchen table, in the memory of who shifted what when, now lives in the platform as a record. Set the return rule against a cover target rather than against the calendar, and the platform holds the mob off the cell until the country says it's ready. When the season pushes back — drought, late rain, a slow spring — the rotation adjusts in real time. The cells that came back faster come into rotation sooner. The cells that are still rebuilding stay locked off until they're ready. The discipline lives in the system rather than in a manager who has to remember which paddock is on which clock.

Carrying capacity lifts. Pasture cover lifts. The cells that used to get short-changed because the rotation drifted now get the rest they need. The cells that were over-rested because they sat at the back of the rotation come into the cycle properly. The rotation does what the textbook always claimed it would do. And the data writes itself. Every cell entry. Every cell exit. Every rest period. Every return interval. The story the operator has been telling at field days for a decade becomes a defensible record of what actually happened on the ground. Useful to a soil scientist. Useful to a buyer. Useful to a carbon program. Useful to the operator themselves, two seasons from now, trying to figure out why one cell finished steers and another didn't.

The rotation you wanted to run. Finally the rotation you can run.

## Rough country
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/rough-country
Subhead: Steep, broken, timbered, remote. The country that's hardest to fence is usually the country worth running, and it's been managed by what the operator can see and reach. eShepherd changes that.
Summary: How operations on steep, broken, and remote country use eShepherd to manage cattle where physical fencing is impractical to build, maintain, or reach.
The country that's hardest to fence is usually the country worth running. Steep faces hold more feed per acre than the flats below them. Timber country shelters cattle through weather. Broken ground runs the kind of grass that wouldn't grow on smooth paddocks. The rough country is part of what makes the operation work. It's also the country that gets managed by what someone can see from the saddle, the side-by-side, or the kitchen window. Cattle drift to the easy feed and stay there. The hard faces never get touched. The gully systems run themselves. The back country gets a muster twice a year and not much else. The infrastructure gap is the reason. Running a fence across contour is two to three times the cost of running it on a flat. Maintaining it through a winter on a steep face is its own line item. And the fences that did get built are usually the ones that go around the easy country, not through the rough. So the operator owns the country, pays the rates on the country, but only really manages the eighty percent of it that the existing fences carve up. The remaining twenty percent — often the most productive twenty percent on a per-acre basis — runs as a single uncontrolled block.

Software boundaries don't care about contour. A line drawn across a steep face costs the same as a line drawn across a flat. The boundary follows the country instead of fighting it. The gully system gets subdivided properly. The timbered shelter gets locked off for the months it needs to recover. The hard face that's never been touched comes into rotation for the first time. The animals walk to the boundary, hear the audio cue, and turn — the same way they learn any piece of country. The infrastructure stops being the constraint. The country comes back into the operation in proportion to its actual value, not in proportion to what was cheap to fence.

This is where the rough-country case gets specific. Cellular doesn't reach into a lot of this country. Carrier maps look good on the website and stop working at the second ridge. eShepherd is built for that. Every base station runs a private LoRa network as well as a cellular backhaul. The cattle talk to the base station over LoRa, which propagates across hills, through timber, and into the gully systems where cellular simply doesn't go. The base station handles the link back to the platform, and when cellular is unavailable, the system stays operational on its private radio mesh until the next time the manager is in coverage themselves. For the operator, that means the mob is visible and the boundary is held on country where any cellular-only system would lose contact. The dead zone on the carrier map is no longer the limit of where you can run virtual fencing. This is the difference that decides whether the technology works on country that actually needs it. The solar and battery side of the hardware matters here too. Steep country shades. Timber country shades worse. The neckbands have to keep running through weeks where the panel sees less sun than the marketing photos imply. eShepherd's larger solar collector and longer-duration battery were specified for exactly this country, not for a flat paddock on a clear day.

The other thing that breaks in rough country is the muster. Half a day's ride to find half the mob. Another half-day to find the rest. The animals scattered through timber, drainages, and back blocks, and the manager riding country to confirm what's already been mustered and what hasn't. The spring muster on big mountain country has always taken multiple trips. Live location collapses that. Every animal on a screen. Every drainage cleared from the map, not from memory. The mob moves to the yards because the system knows where the mob is, and the ride is to confirm what's already on the map rather than to find what isn't. The same logic applies to the day-to-day check. The country gets walked in proportion to where the cattle actually are, not in proportion to what the manager last assumed.

The country that was too rough to fence is the country eShepherd was built for. Bring it back into the operation.

## Conservation grazing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/conservation-grazing
Subhead: Cattle have been a land management tool for as long as people have run them. Software boundaries finally make the targeting precise enough to be a strategy. Fire-fuel reduction, weed control, corridor management, biodiversity outcomes. The herd becomes the tool.
Summary: How land managers, agencies, and operators are using eShepherd to deploy cattle as a targeted ecological tool — fire-fuel reduction, weed control, corridor management, biodiversity restoration.
Cattle have been a vegetation tool since long before they were a commercial product. The country knows what to do with them. A mob hits a block hard for a week, knocks the load down, drops the manure, walks on. The country rests, the regeneration starts, the system works. The problem has always been precision. A physical fence carves the country into rectangles that suit the boundary, not the objective. A creek bend that needs three days of pressure on one face and zero on the other has no fencing solution that doesn't cost more than the work is worth. A roadside corridor that needs grazing once a year for two weeks doesn't justify the post-and-wire job, so it gets slashed by a tractor instead. So the work that should be done by animals gets done by herbicide, slashing, and burning. Each of those has a place. Each of them is also expensive, single-purpose, and harder on the country than a well-targeted graze. The tool that should be working hasn't had the targeting to be useful.

The boundary lives where the objective lives. Around the weed patch, not around the paddock. Along the roadside corridor, not along the contour. Through the fuel-reduction strip, not through the gate the fencer happened to put in twenty years ago. The cattle work the country that needs working, and they don't touch the country that doesn't. A base station deploys onto site, often on infrastructure that's already there. The neckbands hold the animals to the objective. The mob walks in, does the work, walks out. The infrastructure leaves on the truck. The country that was treated stays treated, the country that wasn't was never touched, and the manager has a data trail that proves both.

Fire-fuel reduction. Fuel loads build in the country no one grazes. That's most of the country no one wants to graze. The roadside reserve. The strip between the powerline and the boundary. The face above the township. The block of public land that was deemed too rough to subdivide. Each of them carries the fuel that turns a small fire into a serious one, and each of them is impractical to fence. A mob run through a strategic fuel break does in a fortnight what a slashing program does in three days at twenty times the cost, with the added benefit of nutrient cycling instead of windrowed cuttings. Move the mob along the strip on a schedule the fire authority agrees to. The boundary moves with them. The strip gets treated end-to-end without a single permanent fence going in, and the country either side stays untouched. The work happens before fire season. The risk drops. The contractor invoice doesn't arrive.

Targeted weed control. Some weeds respond to cattle. Blackberry, gorse, broom, lantana, serrated tussock, leafy spurge, knapweed — every region has its list, and every list has at least a few that a well-timed graze suppresses better than spraying. The problem is timing. The weed needs pressure at a specific growth stage, often for a short window. Cattle pushed onto a weed patch at the wrong time achieve nothing; pushed at the right time, they shift the competitive balance in favour of the desired species. eShepherd makes the timing actually targetable. Draw the boundary around the infestation. Hold the mob inside it for the days the weed is vulnerable. Pull them out before they start grazing the desirable understorey or moving onto pasture you don't want them on. The pressure lands where the weed needs it, and only there. No spray drift. No off-target damage. No herbicide residue. Across a multi-year program, the weed retreats. The desirable species fill in. The country that needed restoring restores itself with the animals doing the work.

Infrastructure corridors. Roadsides. Powerline easements. Pipeline corridors. Rail reserves. Firebreaks around townships and critical infrastructure. This is country that needs regular vegetation management and almost never gets grazed, because the fencing economics don't work. Most of it gets slashed or sprayed by contractors on a calendar, regardless of what the vegetation is actually doing. A small mob, deployed with virtual boundaries that match the corridor exactly, replaces the slasher run for a fraction of the cost. The work gets done by animals that are also producing meat on the side. The contractor budget drops. The country gets the kind of management it actually responds to. And the agency or council managing the corridor has a defensible record of what was treated, when, and to what standard. For the operator, conservation grazing contracts on public corridors become a real revenue line that doesn't require buying land. The base station moves with the mob, the lease lasts as long as the contract, and the operator builds a separate income stream on country they couldn't otherwise access.

Biodiversity and native vegetation. The hardest conservation work is targeted disturbance. Some ecosystems need grazing. Native grasslands, certain wetlands, fire-adapted shrublands — many of them evolved with grazing pressure and decline without it. The conservation problem isn't always too many cattle. Sometimes it's none. A virtual boundary lets the manager apply the right amount of pressure to the right area for the right window, and zero pressure to the rest. Run the mob through a native pasture for the four days the litter needs trampling and the seed bank needs hoof contact. Then pull them out and lock the country off for the eight months the regeneration needs to compound. Repeat next year on a different block. The data trail records every minute the animals were on the block, every cell shift, every return. The kind of evidence biodiversity programs, threatened-species offsets, and restoration contracts have always wanted and rarely had.

For the land manager, the cost of vegetation management drops and the quality of the outcome lifts. For the agency, the data trail makes the management defensible to the public, to auditors, and to the budget. For the operator running conservation grazing as a service, public and conservation land becomes a new line of business that doesn't require any capital investment in infrastructure. The animal becomes a tool. The tool becomes a service. The service becomes a market. And the country that was being managed by herbicide, slasher, and burn gets managed by the species that evolved to manage it.

The herd does the work. The boundary keeps it where the work needs doing.

## Crop grazing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/crop-grazing
Subhead: Stubble. Cover crops. Dual-purpose wheat and barley. Fodder crops. One field, two enterprises, zero temporary fencing.
Summary: How cropping operations use eShepherd to graze stubbles, cover crops, and dual-purpose crops without rolling out temporary fencing across fields the size of small towns.
Cropping country runs huge fields. The boundaries that suit a header don't suit a mob of cattle. The minimum economic field size for cropping is the maximum manageable grazing block for cattle, and the gap between the two is the reason mixed enterprises have always been more expensive to run than they look on paper. Stubble grazing is the obvious example. After harvest, the field carries weeks of feed value — spilled grain, leaf, regrowth, weed seeds the operator would rather not see germinate. Running cattle through it cycles nutrients, suppresses weeds, and reduces the cost of going into the next crop. The catch is that the field is fifty hectares or two hundred, and grazing it as a single block burns the feed in three days and leaves the rest of the value on the ground. Same shape on dual-purpose crops. A wheat or barley crop grazed in vegetative phase puts weight on cattle and lifts grain yield, but the window between safe grazing and damage to the growing crop is short and field-specific. The conventional answer is electric tape on tread-ins, rolled out and shifted by hand, often across fields where the nearest power source for the energiser is half a kilometre away. The labour kills the practice. So the stubble gets a single uncontrolled graze, or none at all. The cover crop sits unused because the fencing maths doesn't work. The dual-purpose crop gets sown but rarely grazed because the operator can't justify the labour. The feed that the rotation should be picking up gets left on the ground, every season, on every cropping operation.

Strip the field in software. Draw a strip across a fifty-hectare stubble. Move the mob through it on schedule. The strip can be five hectares wide or two — whatever fits the mob and the feed value. Redraw the strip tomorrow without driving to the field, without rolling out tape, without dropping a single tread-in into the ground. A field that used to deliver three days of grazing now delivers three weeks of structured grazing, and the cattle exit on the same day the operator decides — not the day the manager has time to get out and roll the fence in.

On dual-purpose crops, the value gets sharpest. A wheat or barley crop grazed in vegetative phase, lifted off before stem elongation, delivers a meaningful weight gain and a grain yield equal to or better than the ungrazed comparison. The literature has been clear on this for decades. The operational problem has always been the timing — knowing the day to lift the cattle off, and being able to lift them off without spending two days re-fencing. eShepherd takes the timing question and makes it operational. The cattle are on the crop for the window you set. The boundary holds the strip you draw. The day the agronomist says lift them off, the operator redraws the boundary and the mob moves to the next field, the stubble, or the back paddock. No temporary fencing to roll up. No regret about leaving them on a day too long because pulling them off was a hassle. The dual-purpose enterprise stops being an experiment and starts being a real line on the budget.

Cover crops finally pay back what they cost. Stubble residues get used. Dual-purpose crops deliver both yields, not one. The rotation between cattle and cropping runs off one map, and the field that used to host one enterprise hosts two. For the operator, the unit economics shift. The cropping margin lifts because the cattle improve the system rather than competing with it. The cattle margin lifts because the feed bill is replaced by feed that was already grown for the other enterprise. The labour line — the one that used to swallow the weekend every time the stubble came off — disappears. The mixed enterprise becomes more profitable than either enterprise running alone. The textbook always said it would. The fencing always said it wouldn't.

The same field. Two enterprises. And nothing to roll up at the end.

## More acres, less infrastructure
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/extensive-operations
Subhead: Internal subdivision becomes optional. External fence still does its job. Capital that used to sit in star pickets sits in animals.
Summary: How extensive beef operations use eShepherd to subdivide country without barbed wire. Labour saved, infrastructure capex avoided, stocking-rate flex without booking a contractor.
Barbed wire has a hidden cost, and most operations have stopped counting it. The repair labour after every storm. The drift across a generation. The replacement capex every twenty years or so. The whole days a good stockman can spend driving the fence line looking for the break before the mob finds it. The dollar-per-kilometre figure on a fencing quote is the part you see. The rest is the labour, the fuel, the time the team spends on a job that doesn't grow grass or finish cattle. And then there's the fence you didn't build. The subdivision you needed but couldn't justify. The cell you wanted to graze but couldn't reach. The lane you wanted to run because it would solve five problems, but the cost-per-metre meant it sat on the wishlist for the better part of a decade. That's the real cost of conventional fencing. Not the wire you put up, but the country you never quite worked the way you wanted to.

Subdivide on the phone. Draw the line where today's feed is. Move the mob from the kitchen on a Sunday morning. Redraw next week when the country tells you to. Run a single mob through ten cells in a week without driving a single post. The animals walk to the boundary, hear the audio cue, and turn. They learn the layout in a few days, the same way they learn any other piece of country. The infrastructure that used to live in the soil now lives in the platform, and it moves at the speed of a decision rather than the speed of a contractor. No posts to drive, no wire to roll out, no fencing crew booked six weeks ahead.

Trial a new layout for two weeks. If it doesn't work, redraw it. The risk of getting subdivision wrong drops to the time it takes to drag a finger across a screen, which is roughly the cheapest experiment any beef operation will ever run. Drought rotation through the back blocks gets done in an afternoon. Post-flood reconfiguration around damaged country gets done before the contractor returns the call. An opportunistic graze on the neighbour's stubble gets done, and pulled out the day the agreement ends, with no fencing left behind to argue over. Try the rotation you've been thinking about for ten years and see what actually happens. The downside is small enough that the experiment becomes the cheapest part of running the place, and the upside compounds the moment something works.

External fencing still does its job. Boundary. Biosecurity. Neighbour relations. The conversations that need a real fence to settle them. Internal fencing becomes optional. The capital that used to sit in star pickets and mainline tape is free to sit in animals, water, or genetics. Maintenance hours that drove the fence line drive the mob check instead. The contractor budget that rolled into the next quarter rolls into the things that actually compound on a beef operation. That's the whole point. The fence stops being something you maintain, and starts being something you draw.

The fence moves with the feed. Not the other way around.

## Winter grazing
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/winter-grazing
Subhead: The season that decides the year's margins. Snowline-driven rangeland in North America, break-feeding winter crops in the southern hemisphere. Different country, same problem. eShepherd holds the boundary while the grazing window stretches.
Summary: How cold-climate graziers and winter-crop operators use eShepherd to extend the grazing season, manage break-feeding without temporary fencing, and bring the spring muster home in a single ride.
Winter is the most expensive season on every operation that has one. In cold-climate rangeland, the snow buries the grass earlier than anyone wants, the mob comes in for hand-feeding, and stored hay becomes the largest line on the operating budget. The window between the last day on grass and the first day back on grass is months of feed that has to come from somewhere, and the longer the winter, the longer the bill. In southern-hemisphere systems, winter looks different but costs the same. Pasture growth collapses. The mob shifts onto winter forage crops — swedes, kale, fodder beet, rape, oats — that have to be break-fed across the season to make the feed last. Every break is a fencing event. Temporary tape rolled out, shifted by hand, often in mud, often in rain, often twice a day, often by labour the operation can't easily afford. Across both systems, winter is what the rest of the year pays for. And in both, the conventional management is labour-intensive at exactly the time of year that labour is hardest to find.

Boundaries move with the season. In snow country, the line follows the snowline, not the fence line. The country that's still grazeable stays in rotation. The country that's buried gets locked off until the snow drops. As conditions change, the boundary changes with them. No posts to dig out of drifts. No wire to re-string across what used to be a paddock. In forage-crop country, the break moves on the platform, not on the ground. Draw the day's break the night before, or set the moves up for the week. The mob shifts on schedule whether the manager's out there or not. The temporary tape, the tread-ins, the rolled-up gear that lives in the back of every utility through winter — all of it stops being part of the system. The grazing window stretches in one direction. The labour drops in the other. Winter stops being a holding pattern and starts being a managed strategy.

In snow country, the snowline is the boundary. Across British Columbia, Alberta, the northern plains, and the Interior West, a virtual fence tracks it. When the snow drops on the eastern face, lock that face off. When it thaws on the western, open it up. The mob stays out on grass as long as the country can carry them, and the hand-feeding window starts shorter than it has in years. Leased winter ground three or four hours from the home property becomes a real option. The base station travels with the mob. The boundary deploys on arrival. Fence maintenance through deep snow — usually its own full-time job — drops to almost nothing, because the only physical infrastructure on site is a base station and a mob of neckbands. The feed bill follows the grazing window. Less hay bought. Less hay hauled. Less of the season spent feeding what should have been winter standing forage.

On winter forage crops, the work is break-feeding. Across NZ South Island and southern Australia, a paddock of swedes, kale, fodder beet, rape, or oats gets metered out to a mob in daily strips for weeks at a stretch. Each break has to be the right size for the day's feed allocation, has to shift on time to maintain pasture utilisation, and has to be small enough that the mob isn't trampling the next two days of feed under hoof. eShepherd replaces the temporary fencing with a software break. Draw the strip the night before. Set the moves up for the week ahead. The break moves on schedule, the mob walks forward into the new allocation, the utilisation stays high, and nobody walks out into the cold to shift tape. The pugging risk drops too. A boundary held in software doesn't depend on tread-ins that loosen in wet ground. The break holds where it should hold, even when the soil is sodden, and the welfare and regulatory exposure that come with winter mud management drop accordingly.

Wherever the operation is, the spring gather looks different. On mountain country, animals scatter into drainages and timber through winter. The traditional spring muster takes multiple trips and several days of riding. Live location collapses the work. With the mob visible on a single screen, the gather is a single ride that confirms what's already on the map, rather than days of riding to find what isn't. On forage-crop country, the end-of-winter transition off crops and back onto pasture happens cleanly. Every animal accounted for. Every break finished out. No mob left behind in the back of the paddock because the fence shifted late.

Winter brings its own list of hazards. Some are universal. Some are regional. Frozen creek crossings. Avalanche-prone faces. Toxic species like Ponderosa pine and locoweed that become attractive when the pasture is gone. Boggy ground around troughs that turns into welfare risk when the mob is concentrated. Pugging damage on saturated paddocks that turns into a regulatory issue, especially in NZ where winter grazing rules are tightening every year. A software boundary moves around any of it. Lock off the avalanche path before the snow loads. Hold the mob away from the toxic block until the pasture comes back. Pull animals back from a creek when the freeze-thaw cycle makes the bank unstable. Each risk gets managed in advance, not after.

The grazing window stretches. The feed bill comes down. The labour comes down. The mob works with the season.

## Fence the lease, not the land
URL: https://eshepherd.com/use-it-for/leased-and-public-land
Subhead: Take more transient ground without committing capital to fencing it. Deploy a herd, leave the land as you found it.
Summary: How operations on agistment, short-term leases, and pastoral leases use eShepherd to graze country they don't own, without infrastructure they can't recover at lease-end.
Agistment runs. Short-term leases. Pastoral leases on Crown ground. Contract grazing. Country you have access to for a season, a year, three years if you're lucky — and no permission, no incentive, and no recovery to build permanent infrastructure on. Every star picket driven into a lease is capital you'll never see again. Every roll of tape is labour the lease won't pay back. Every gate hung on someone else's boundary is a conversation you'll have when the term's up, and not every term ends as cleanly as it began. So the country you wanted to graze tends to get passed on. The corner the neighbour offered. The agistment block that came up at short notice. The pastoral lease that needs sub-grazing to stay in good standing. The Crown ground that opened up after a fire because the previous tenant pulled out. Not because the feed isn't there. Not because the price isn't right. The fencing maths just doesn't work. The operations that take the most transient ground are the ones who've figured out how to graze it without committing the infrastructure that the lease itself can't justify. That's a small group, and it's about to get larger.

Deploy a herd. The boundary is software. Drop the base station, mounted on existing infrastructure or a temporary post. Fit the neckbands. Draw the lines that match the lease to the metre — the edges, the off-limits corners, the riparian buffer the lease specifies, the off-track exclusions the pastoral lease requires. The animals walk in. They learn the boundary inside a few days. The platform holds it for the duration of the lease, without a contractor, without a fencing budget, and without a single hole in the ground. Pull the herd out at lease-end and the land is exactly as you found it. No posts to recover. No wire to roll up. No awkward conversations about who owns the gate hung in 2023. The base station leaves on the truck with the animals.

The connectivity question matters most on country you don't own. Cellular IoT works where the carrier coverage is, and the carrier coverage is wider than most operators realise — most pastoral leases have at least patchy reception, and patchy is enough. Where it doesn't reach, eShepherd's base station runs a private LoRa network as a fallback, providing the herd-to-platform link without depending on any external network at all. Either way, the herd talks to the platform, the platform talks to you, and the lease's lack of infrastructure stops being the constraint that decides where you run cattle. The dead zone on the carrier map is no longer the limit of where you can run virtual fencing. Take the agistment block that's eight hours away. Take the Crown ground that ran without a tenant for two years because no one wanted the fencing bill. Take the short-term lease that opens up after a flood, where the previous setup was washed out and there's no time to rebuild before the season turns. The base station is the only thing you bring with you, and it leaves with you when the lease is up.

Capital that used to sit in fence wire now sits in animals. The lease pays back faster, because the entry cost is dramatically lower. The marginal block becomes a real opportunity instead of a wishlist item. The next agistment offer becomes a yes instead of a maybe. The seasonal arbitrage between tight country at home and cheaper feed over the back becomes a strategy you can actually run, not a thought experiment. For the contract grazier — operators whose entire business is taking other people's cattle on other people's land — the unit economics shift entirely. The fencing capex that used to limit which blocks were viable goes to zero. Every offer becomes a real conversation. Grazing pressure goes where the feed is. Capital goes where it compounds. The fence stops being the bottleneck on which country you can run.

Leave the land as you found it. And take the data you built on it with you.

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FAQ
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## What is eShepherd and how does it work?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-what-is-eshepherd

A virtual fencing system using GPS-enabled neckbands and a mobile app. You draw virtual fences on a digital map; the neckbands keep animals within the boundary using sound, with a mild pulse only if they cross.

## Can virtual fencing replace physical fences?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-benefits-over-physical

Mostly yes. eShepherd replaces internal cross-fencing entirely, no posts, wires, or manual repairs. Most operations keep boundary fences for stock-proofing and biosecurity, but break the interior into virtual paddocks and adjust them in minutes from the app. Improves pasture productivity, feed efficiency, and reduces infrastructure costs. Also useful for waterway protection and land care compliance.

## What is the minimum herd size for training?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-minimum-herd-size

At least 20 animals. Once trained, you can split into smaller mobs as long as each group has leaders and followers.

## Can I use eShepherd with other types of livestock?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-other-livestock

Designed for most cattle breeds over 200 kg / 440 lb, including bulls. Not suitable for sheep or goats.

## How do I set up eShepherd on my property?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-setup

Gallagher assesses your property and recommends either Direct to Cellular or Base Stations (for patchy coverage). They deliver hardware ready to go and guide you through fitting, training, and app setup.

## Why buy instead of subscribe?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-capital-or-subscription

One-off hardware purchase with a designed 7-10 year service life, plus a low ongoing monthly connectivity charge, so there's no per-head subscription. Firmware and software updates are included. Data fees are only charged on active neckbands. Build an indicative quote to see what your operation would cost.

## Is there any funding available?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-funding

Various cost-share programs exist by region. Gallagher links to a Farm Subsidy Tracker tool.

## Is the eShepherd neckband a GPS cattle collar?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-is-neckband-a-collar

Yes. eShepherd uses the term neckband because the device is fitted around the animal's neck and designed for long-term wear. Many producers search for this category as GPS cattle collars, virtual fencing collars, or smart cattle collars.

## How much does eShepherd cost?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-pricing-cost

It depends on your herd size, your connectivity setup, and your region, so rather than a one-size price we put together an accurate figure for your operation with a free, no-obligation quote. You own the neckbands outright (there is no per-head lease), with a small monthly connectivity charge per active neckband. Get a free quote to find out what eShepherd would cost for your herd.

## What is the connectivity charge?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-connectivity-charge

It's a small fixed monthly charge per active neckband. It covers the data connection between each neckband and the platform, plus a contribution to keeping the platform running and maintained. You only pay it for neckbands that are active in a given month. The exact amount depends on your region and network type and is shown on your quote.

## Which countries is eShepherd available in?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-where-available

eShepherd is running on farms in many countries today, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Greece and Denmark, with many more besides. Availability and carrier coverage vary by region, so register your interest to find out about eShepherd in your country.

## What is the difference between eShepherd and a GPS cattle tracker?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-vs-gps-tracker

A GPS tracker only tells you where an animal is. eShepherd does that and contains the animal: you draw virtual paddocks on a map and the neckband keeps cattle inside them using an audio cue, with a mild pulse only if they push through. On top of containment and live tracking you also get breach and animal-down alerts, grazing heat maps, and remote mob moves, so it replaces internal fencing and a tracker in one system.

## Does eShepherd need towers?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-no-mobile-signal

No. eShepherd cellular uses existing mobile networks (Telstra, Verizon, Spark, Vodafone, etc.), no proprietary infrastructure. For properties without cellular coverage, the LoRa flavour uses small on-property base stations (not towers) typically mounted on a shed roof or windmill. You can mix cellular and LoRa flavours on the same property under one platform.

## Does eShepherd work without mobile coverage?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-cellular-vs-lora

Yes. eShepherd ships in two flavours of the same neckband: a cellular flavour that uses existing mobile networks, and a LoRa flavour that uses on-property base stations and works completely offline. You can run both on one property under one platform, cellular on the main mob, LoRa on a back paddock with no signal.

## What is the battery life?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-battery-life

Solar-powered lithium iron phosphate battery, 7-10 year design life. IPX7 waterproof. A few hours of sunlight maintains charge for several days. See the neckband specs.

## What does the warranty cover?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-warranty

Engineered for 7-10 years using proven solar tech and robust materials. 3-year warranty covers manufacturing defects. Unlike subscription models, replacement risk isn't baked into ongoing fees. Outside warranty, maintenance is typically just strap or clip replacement.

## Is it too bulky or big?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-size-and-weight

At 2.5 kg with weight under the chin, animals aren't bothered. Large solar panels give 10+ days of battery in low-light. Chain electrode ensures contact through winter coats. Needs adjustment only every 2-5 months. See the neckband specs.

## What happens if network communication fails?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-network-fail

Virtual paddocks stay active for up to 24 hours. After that, if communication isn't restored, fences deactivate and animals can roam.

## How long does a neckband last?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-neckband-lifespan

Each neckband is engineered for 7 to 10 years of continuous outdoor wear on the animal, powered by a solar-charged lithium iron phosphate battery and rated IPX7 waterproof. It carries a 3-year warranty against manufacturing defects; beyond that, maintenance is typically just a strap or clip replacement.

## What happens in emergencies like fire or predators?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-emergencies

Panic detection mode allows animals to break boundaries during flight responses. Fences can be remotely deactivated from the app.

## Is eShepherd safe for cattle?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-safe-for-cattle

Yes. Built on behavioural science, cattle respond to audio cues with minimal pulses. Neckbands are adjustable with a built-in breakaway safety feature.

## How do animals get trained?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-training-time

Keep at least 20 animals together. Most cattle learn in 3–10 days. Start with a training paddock overlaying the virtual fence on a physical one, with one virtual boundary. Cattle quickly associate the audio cue with the boundary and respond. See how the loop works.

## How does animal down alerts work?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-animal-down

If an animal is inactive for more than 10% of a 24-hour period, the system sends a notification.

## Does virtual fencing hurt cattle? Is the pulse cruel?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-does-it-hurt

No. The system is audio-first: as an animal nears a virtual boundary the neckband plays a warning sound, and cattle quickly learn to turn back at the sound alone. Only if an animal keeps going does it receive a brief, low-energy electrical pulse, well below the level of a traditional electric fence, and that pulse is rarely triggered after the first week of training. The approach is built on behavioural science and supported by long-running independent animal-welfare research, and every neckband has a breakaway safety feature.

## How accurate is the GPS tracking?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-gps-accuracy

±1 metre (3 feet) when cattle are within 20 metres of a virtual fence.

## What if an animal escapes?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-breach

Continued audio warnings and pulses as they move away from the virtual boundary. Breaches are uncommon and animals typically return quickly on their own. Track individuals in the app with breach notifications. See the virtual-fencing explainer.

## What is the ROI?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-roi

Virtual fencing delivers increased revenue via better pasture utilisation, reduced costs from less fence maintenance and labour, and operational flexibility without physical infrastructure. Use the ROI calculator to see the numbers for your operation.

## How does eShepherd support grazing decisions?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-grazing-decisions

Heat maps in the app show real-time grazing pressure for rotation planning, overgrazing prevention, and pasture recovery.

## Can I move the virtual fence remotely, and how fast?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-move-fence-remotely

Yes. You redraw the paddock boundary on the map in the eShepherd web or mobile app, and the new boundary is sent to the neckbands over cellular or LoRa within minutes. There are no posts to pull or wire to roll, so you can shift a mob to fresh feed, fence off a waterway, or open a laneway from anywhere, in about the time it takes to draw a line.

## What support is available?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-support

Hands-on support from setup through troubleshooting, including training resources and onboarding.

## How secure is the data and who owns it?
URL: https://eshepherd.com/faq#faq-data-ownership

You own your data. Gallagher doesn't access it without permission. Stored in the cloud with industry-standard encryption.