Parsons to speak on virtual fencing at East Coast Farm Expo

James Parsons and sons Joseph and Matt look out over Matauri Angus, near Dargaville. Hill country farmer Parsons will be talking about virtual fencing at the East Coast Farm Expo in Wairoa next month.

The future is now when it comes to virtual fencing on hill country farms, as James Parsons will explain at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo next month.

Parsons is among a raft of presenters confirmed for the Expo, being held at the Wairoa Racecourse on February 19-20.

It was not long ago the suggestion of using virtual fencing on steep hill country farms would have been met with a Tui Beer reaction (Yeah, right) ... but not anymore.

Parsons and his team at Matauri Angus stud in Tangowahine Valley, near Dargaville, are pushing the boundaries through the installation of GPS-tracking smart collars on their hill country beef.

The collars, which can be controlled by phone, were designed by Halter – a New Zealand company formed by mechanical engineer Craig Piggott while working for Rocket Lab. The collars guide animals around the farm without the need for a physical fence.

Matauri Angus winters 510 stud Angus cattle, alongside 1300 breeding ewes, on 535 hectares north of Dargaville.

It is the first hill country beef farm to use the specialised Halter product ... and Parsons describes it as “an absolute game-changer”.

“The cost of conventional fences and the associated repairs and maintenance that goes with them is getting quite excessive. At a fraction of the cost you can install virtual fencing and get better grazing management.”

He has not done away with physical fences but says 30- to 40-hectare blocks is fine.

“This really is the way of the future.”

Matauri Angus’s use of this technology started with a discussion with Halter at the Northland Field Days in March 2023. The timing was perfect as the company was about to embark on a strategy for using the collars for beef and was weighing up how to get started.

Parsons had been watching the development of the technology for some time but there had not been a commercially available product for beef.

An agreement was made with Halter to test the technology on Matauri Angus.

Parsons’ biggest concern was if the technology would work on steep hill country.

It proved successful and, from there, it took just three weeks for him to start the conversion.

“We have very steep hills so if it can work on our farm, it can work on any hill country farm,” Parsons says.

Among its benefits are improving pasture use by grazing parts of paddocks that were lax grazed before; better quality pasture and improved pasture growth rates due to more optimal grazing and uncollared calves being able to creep graze ahead of their mums.

“At mating time, cows can be kept mobbed up so the bull can get around easily with cows grazed on easier parts of hill paddocks, reducing the likelihood of bull injuries when mating cows on steep hillsides,” Parsons says.

Matauri Angus also has less need for new fences, accurate stock tallies can be taken in each block and the team can see where the animals are at all times.

The Halter collars use communication towers, which cost $6000 each. Nine have been put up at Matauri Angus. The collars are rented at $96 a year.

Paersons has 270 of the stations 510 wintered animals collared.

“We don’t collar our stud bulls at this stage as they are weaned on to smaller easier paddocks where we still use break feeding with electric fences, which helps us keep the total collar cost down.”

It is critical to have feed planning and the right grazing rotation, he says.

“Beef farmers on hill country are used to leaving stock in a large paddock for a week or more. Then they go and look at the pasture and make a call whether to shift them or not.

“It is too easy with virtual fencing to make a shift without having a good idea of the pasture residual or how much they are moving into. You have to stay in touch with your farm or you may end up with worse grazing management than if you stayed with conventional grazing management.

“Consequently, we haven’t seen dramatic labour savings through using Halter as we are making a lot more grazing decisions than before, with animals shifted virtually every couple of days now.

“But it has meant we can farm more efficiently with our pasture utilisation, and that means greater productivity.”

Parsons says before starting it is key to develop a grazing plan in terms of virtual break design. It determines where water troughs will be installed to facilitate grazing management.

“Not having strategically placed troughs is a significant constraint to grazing in the non-winter months.”

At Matauri, he works on one trough for every four hectares.

“Once completed we will have close to 133 troughs across our 535 hectares. You need to get a production lift to justify the investment but you won’t without a grazing plan and optimal water infrastructure.”

The cows learn quickly the parameters of virtual fencing and Parsons says it is important to invest in training people and how best to operate the system.

Daily or two-daily shifts means a lot more grazing management decisions in a week than most hill country beef farmers are used to.

“So having a clear plan and system are vital.”

– Story by Diana Dobson for East Coast Farm Expo