Maximize Grazing Resources with Virtual Fence

It’s no secret ranchers want to leave the land better than they found it; but cross-fencing, setting up water systems and managing multiple groups of cattle creates a lot of labor when laborers are hard to come by. Virtual fence by Vence is solving this challenge for ranchers across North America.  

“Our biggest advantage of using this technology is the saving of labor,” says John Chuiko. 

John and Deanne Chuiko ranch in Northwest Saskatchewan on the land John’s grandparents homesteaded. They are a cow-calf operation committed to improving soil health, but their terrain makes it challenging to implement cross-fencing for regular moves. 

“We live right on a provincial forest called the Bronson forest which also hilly and swampy,” explains John. “Fencing in there is hard on machinery and very expensive.”  

There are even areas of the land that are challenging to get horses through. However, the rough terrain hasn’t stopped the Chuiko’s from achieving their goals thanks to virtual fence technology through Vence. 

John says, “Utilization on our forest release has been way better with this technology.” 

Vence also saves Chuikos lots of time when it comes to sorting groups of cows and making management decisions.  

“Our main herd and our open herd were all on the same quarter last summer,” says Deanne. “So, we were using different virtual fences to manage each herd separately.” 

A dry summer called for culling more cows to save their grazing resources. Virtual fence made allowed the cows to sort themselves. 

“It literally takes seconds to throw up a back fence on the software,” says Deanne. 

Back fences allowed Chuikos to sort off all but two of their dry cows from the main herd without having to leave the office. 

Grazing insights are also available on individual cows and each group. 

Deanne says, “Just going back to look at all the grazing data throughout the summertime is really valuable data to have.” 

One example of grazing data from Vence are heat maps.  

“This is just a different way to look at where the cows have been and where they're spending their time on the software,” says Deanne. “It's just showing you exactly in that forest release where the cows are spending their time.” 

John and Deanne also use the grazing insights to sort out cows who don’t respect the technology. While this isn’t common, it happens and they make culling decisions accordingly.  

“I would say the majority of the girls figure it out quickly,” says Deanne. “But this one cow didn’t respect it and we knew that because of the grazing data.” 

An added bonus of incorporating Vence has been monitoring predator control, especially since Chuikos ranch amongst cats, bears and wolves. 

“The wolves had killed a heifer, a heifer and its calf proven by both the technology and blood trail,” explains John. “So we were able to pass that on to our crop insurance people and get some money for the calf.” 

Overall, the benefits of virtual fence technology outweigh the challenges for the John and Deanne.  

John says, “There are definitely challenges and there's definitely opportunities. Keep an open mind, get comfortable with the technology and use it to push yourself and improve your operation.” 

Listen to the full conversation and get the visual of how Vence works on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast.