Hi-tech cow collars are a boon, but crofters need help to fund them

I’ve been after cow ­collars for a few years now, but the cost has always put me off. At around £20 apiece, before the subscription that runs the GPS element, it’s a reasonably large investment without first testing the ­concept.

I tell a lie, I initially started ­researching them for my wayward North Ronaldsay sheep. Ideally suited to the shore, the wee horrors refused to heft themselves to a specific bit, and used the freedom afforded by the handy tides to expand their territory to take in the entire township, a lot of front gardens, and my neighbour’s shed.

They nailed an entire flowerbed in under an hour. The free fertilising cut no ice with the owner.

Finally, after removing them bodily, one at a time, from a field that was off limits due to a conservation scheme, watched by chuckling onlookers sipping cocktails, I’d had enough. This summer they have been behind a fence.

Whether for sheep or cows, or ­indeed, goats, these collars are a brilliant ­invention. Once on, you can use an app to geo-fence an area. Using satellite ­technology, the collars know when they start to reach the boundary I have drawn on my app.

They begin to beep. The ­closer the cow gets, the louder the sound ­becomes. If the cow crosses the ­boundary, the collar gives them a wee shock – ­reportedly less than they would get if their big wet noses hit an electric fence.

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You can imagine my delight when I was approached by Monil, one of the two main companies producing the collars, to ask if they could send me some in return for social media content about them.

I nearly bit their hand off. I love a bit of tech, and I love bargains. If the bargain in question involves gadgets, gratis, and an app, I’ll be there with bells on.

Before I headed off on holiday the ­other week, I fitted the collars and ­began to train the cows. I was enormously ­tickled at the idea of being able to check the ­location of the cows from the continent.

The pulse element raises eyebrows in some quarters. The UK Animal Welfare Committee has published an opinion on virtual fencing, flagging concerns about training and the risk of animals ­receiving repeated shocks. I had my own ­reservations, so I have been watching the data closely.

Within the first few days, the app ­clearly showed the cows hearing the warning tone and backing off before any pulse ­arrived at all. The learning period lasted less than 72 hours. Since then, pulses have settled at two or three a week across the whole herd.

The cows are not stupid. In my personal opinion, a pulse collar is no worse than an electric fence. The recipient is also almost a tonne of cow built for Atlantic weather. I am not electrocuting a toddler.

My main interest is in grazing the ground I have access to more efficiently. I can block off parts of a field, without ­fencing it. I can graze larger areas in strips, and I can keep them off ­particularly wet ground to avoid it getting trashed.

Keeping them in a smaller area, and then gradually opening up access to the next part of the field will mean that more grass is eaten more evenly. In parts of the ­common grazing which are not well enough grazed, I will be able to focus the cows where they are actually needed.

I own a half share in a bull, and I am hoping that his collar will keep him at home once he is bored of his ladies. Time will tell whether it stops him going on the hunt for a new date ...

A cow wearing a cow collar

The collars do more than geo-fencing though. They are also able to monitor the cows to the extent that they can ­indicate whether a cow may be coming into heat – useful for calving dates, and for ­confidence that the bull is doing what he’s been purchased to do.

If a cow comes into season when she should have been bulled, that’s extremely useful information. I’ll be alerted if a cow’s activity is unusually low.

One farmer using the collars got a cow out of a bog in the nick of time thanks to that alert.

I’m told that later in the year, the ­collar software will be updated to give an ­indication that the cow is preparing to calve. Working single-handed, with my cows living outside year-round, that will save some sleepless nights – if it proves reliable.

Technology like this is becoming ­increasingly common in agriculture. Moocall is a gadget that goes round a cow’s tail, and sends you an alert when she is going into labour.

Bigger farms put a bolus down a cow’s throat, which sits in the stomach and relays detailed data about temperature, hydration, rumination and more.

There is more coming. My collars talk to the app over 4G, and they are ­working well on it, but plenty of crofting and hill ground has no such luxury.

Halter, a New Zealand company which has sold a million collars, launched the first virtual fencing to work via satellite earlier this year, no mast required, and is due to arrive in the UK before the year is out. For areas where a mobile data signal is rare as hen’s teeth, that removes the last technical barrier.

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Collars are already being used for ­conservation grazing across Scotland – keeping cattle out of sensitive habitat and putting them on to ground too awkward, too dangerous, or too expensive to fence.

Which brings us back to the cost. I’m well aware that I have these collars ­because a social media following has ­given me the privilege of trying them for free. Most folk have no such option.

At more than £200 a collar plus an annual ­subscription, even a modest number of beasts adds up quickly. This is exactly the sort of kit the Scottish Government’s ­Future Farming Investment Scheme was set up to fund – capital grants for ­equipment that improves efficiency and helps nature and climate, covering up to 100% of the cost.

I applied for collars in the last round. So did plenty of folk I know. None of us got a penny. The first round’s £21.4 ­million was swamped by demand, and the second has been announced at £14.25m – less money will be trying to please the same appetite, and so far the details ­remain ­unsurprisingly vague.

I said that cows are not stupid. Neither are they walkovers. Feeling pleased with myself, I declared the training complete, and moved them from the wee starter field to a bigger area just before I left on my jaunt.

I drew my virtual fence, and over the next 24 hours, I watched them take the zap and escape repeatedly. I woke up in Glasgow to an alert telling me they had all “escaped” the fence.

Less pleased, I scratched my head. What had I got wrong? For that first day, my data looked exactly like the repeated pulses the Animal Welfare Committee warns about – and, also as they warned, the fault lay squarely with the numpty drawing the map.

The penny finally dropped when I ­realised I had blocked off their ­favourite sleeping spot. As soon as I changed my boundaries to let them access their ­preferred bed, everything returned to ­normal. They are behaving exactly as I want. Give and take. Cows are not stupid.

Neither is the agricultural community. Margins are tight and technology doesn’t come cheap. From my conversations, many crofters are willing to explore the technology that ministers keep telling us is the future of climate-friendly farming, but if the Government wants wholesale change in the quest for net zero, the funding needs to match the rhetoric – it’s give and take.