GPS Tracking Helps Cattle Graze More Efficiently
5 Jul 2016Looking at the mid-Missouri herd of cattle, you might notice some of them have collars on. These collars are equipped with GPS tracking devices that track the cattle all day long. This data is being used by the University of Missouri Extension in order to figure out what their grazing preferences are.
Tracking cattle through GPS could be important to feeding the growing population. Over the next decade, there is expected to be a 30 percent increase in the demand for livestock products.
According to MU Extensions forage specialist, Rob Kallenbach, there is a great deal of pressure being put on pasture systems to be more efficient and productive because of this demand.
He says that the cattle are pickier than you might believe, and tends to be more uniform throughout the entire herd instead of individually.
They tend to prefer certain plants over others and will typically graze on those first, he says. This type of data is being used to make the systems more productive and efficient.
Farmers will be able to design a better pasture system and place the proper types of pastures on the farm. This will enable cattle to access the pastures at specific times of days which will lead to resources being used more efficiently.
He goes on to say that by thinking of the pasture as a big smorgasbord where various types of livestock can be placed to eat, the GPS tracking collars will inform them what the cattle likes to eat and what they don’t. This will allow farmers to design the pasture systems based off of the foods they prefer.
The research has pointed out that there are indeed different plants that the animals prefer to eat at different times of the day and this knowledge can be applied by farmers in a couple ways, Kallenbach says.
The overall goal of this research is to design only the most efficient and productive grazing systems that can help feed the world over the next 20 years or so since 80 percent of what the pasture provides is used for producing beef in the United States.
The supply of pasture and demand for livestock is going in various directions. Although there is an increase in the demand for livestock, throughout the Midwest, acres of pasture are being lost. The data gathered through this GPS tracking on the collars of the cattle will provide producers with ways to farm more cattle on smaller acres of pasture, Kallenbach says.
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