It's more than a virtual fence, it can move them and has health checks / in heat.
I don't know if you can split the herd once together but you can manage more mobs, bring them in groups (Like small and large) for milking or feeding.
You could be able to tell if they mated as well or ever direct the bull towards heifers that haven't.
Cows are stubborn and especially in summer, when they found out that the water cools them down, they get into the water. But often they can't get out, at least how N/W-European pastures are. So you get a tractor and pull them out, but then they learn that :-)
What actually is necessary, is that there's enough shade. But trees need to maintained so a lot of farmers cut them down.
Note that my knowledge is limited and perhaps already out of date.
...solar panels that power the electric fence or 5g broadcaster for the GPS collars, lol.
(Also, it's a common, which in England means massive piles of red tape to build anything on it)
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1anrXAPRE3Dp3ZFo9
https://maps.app.goo.gl/YTfAYamG55SftWay6
https://maps.app.goo.gl/AWKxr76HUzgvSqBG7
People have free access to the river and the field, any physical barrier would limit that.
These digicowbells have a more common application of managing grazing herds in order to rotate them evenly through pastures without having to go out and redeploy fencing every week. If you want Daisy et al to let the north half of the field regrow you just draw a line around it in the app and it’ll get left ungrazed. Popular in large commonland projects too where you want to dynamically leave parts of the land fallow.
It’s also just handy to give your cattle a mobile device. You can monitor their health and breeding status. In the spirit of the dad joke about asking if iPhones “can also make phone calls!?”, it wouldn’t be crazy if these things shipped one day with some kind of two way communications. If Gertrude gets stuck ten miles up the valley it could be handy, perhaps, to see what the problem is before you fire up the brummy quattro (Land Rover.)
Turns out GPS isn't that accurate :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_analysis_for_the_Global_...
Turns out, modern agriculture needs good mobile connectivity wherever cows are being held...
Politics aside, what I don't get is why they don't go and raise temporary electric fences with gates - that's how cows are held in alpine regions. And a side note, if you go on a hike in alpine regions in Germany, please close the gates after you pass through so that the cows don't escape.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/anja-karliczek-br...
These GPS trackers help find cattle, possibly making rescue efforts faster and thus cheaper, but they do not prevent them falling into that river in the first place. A fence does.
I know, this is the classical "NASA builds a 1 million dollar Space pen, Russians use pencil" story - but sometimes, high tech is not necessary to solve problems that have been solved for centuries.
Doesn't mean we don't need better infrastructure. Just that we should avoid overcomplicating things.
The article explains pretty well how the devices prevent cows from falling into the river:
> Solar-powered GPS devices emit a high-pitched sound as the animal moves through a boundary zone towards the water, with a mild electric pulse delivered if it fails to turn around.
Applying human intelligence to bovines may be misguided.
I stand corrected either way.
Invisible Fence (https://www.invisiblefence.com/) has been a thing at least since the early 2000's when we had one for our dog.
Whether each cow needs 5G we can debate - but usually once a service exists, it generates novel ideas that use the service. It's called "innovation", and I invite politicians unfamiliar with the subject (German or otherwise) to attend my lecture with the same title.
After we all tried to give it a bit of a push, we had to admit defeat and call in the Kent Fire Service Animal Rescue Unit: https://www.kent.fire-uk.org/news/meet-crew-specially-traine...
Not a countryside guy: sounds kinda dangerous? If the cow panics (or gets annoyed/angry), getting kicked by a hoof would seem like a direct trip to the hospital? Or if it slips and falls on someone (is that possible?)
I did also have to deadlift a wet sheep out of a stream once and carry one from one field to another. That was a lot easier.
As with most things, it's not as dangerous as the internet would have you think. Don't sneak up it and hit it and you'll be fine.
It also partly depends on the size of the cow. Some regular jersey cow might weight 800 pounds but are still pretty broad so if they fall on you you aren't likely to be killed but of course you could be injured. However some holsteins are pushing 2,000+ pounds and could crush your bones if it fell on you. But cows aren't likely to tip over sideways in general, they have much better lateral movement of their legs than horses to stay steady. And if they start to slip or feel unsteady and can't keep themselves upright, they mostly just try to sit or drop down on their belly. It is why cow tipping doesn't work either which is kind of just a hollywood myth. If you did somehow manage to push a cow sideways enough for them to start tipping, which is already going to be incredibly difficult, they will eventually let their legs buckle beneath them and drop down to their stomach, and not fall over at full height with extended legs.
Just past six AM, winter, somewhere near Godmersham, we’re sat there, the conductor is saying it could be a while before anyone can come to clear the line… so, this being the days of slam-doors, out bundled a dozen besuited commuters, yours truly included, to manhandle a bloody heavy and rather messy deceased bovine out of the way, and off we went. We were only 20 minutes late into Cannon Street, which is essentially on time for that line.
I’m pretty sure it was the only time anyone on that train actually talked to one another.
FYI, I live right next to this area and it's almost as central as you can get in Cambridge, so it's super busy - people and cyclists coming through this field all the time, including myself. There are plenty of fences around the roads and land borders of the commons, but it's just the canals that have these special uses that require a lack of fences.
Seems like maybe the fence could be put up some reasonable distance away from the water to leave enough usable space along the shore for people. I see that done here where I'm at sometimes.
The collars allow for restricting the movement of cows, while leaving the entire area open and unencumbered for everything else.
The shock from the fence was mild, but the cows knew about it and respected the fence. And when the area was grazed out, you moved the fence and gave them a new area. Any "right to roamers" that wanted to cross the field could easily duck under the fence. No problem. Mind you, this was in rural south Germany, not urban Britain. We did get right-to-roamers, sort of, because there was a somewhat popular swimming access to a small lake on our pasture.
There definitely was serious boat transport in the area- midsummer common hosted a fair; historically fairs were actually vital to the economy as a lot of goods were exchanged there, and even more contracts for goods. Nearby Stourbridge fair was the largest in Europe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stourbridge_fair and the inspiration for Bunyan's "Vanity fair" in "Pilgrim's Progress"
Surely it must be well-known that it is exceedingly rare, but valuable, for an organization to document why they didn’t do certain things.
Every time I visit (for synth-diy, mostly) .. I take a few hours and stroll along the cam, and through the city, and just .. enjoy the space.
Even though it is a busy and industrious little town, one can find a tree to park under and read for a few hours and thoroughly enjoy the environment. And yes, occasionally get interrupted by a curious bovine or two.
Also, you haven't lived until you've fallen off a punt or so, or at least enjoyed the view of others doing it while sipping on some suds at Granta on Mill Pond.
Bonus points for bonking ones noggin on the Mathematical Bridge while you're at it.
I really get a feeling that the city was set up for idle thought by the studious and curious. No surprise that it loves its cows too.
Although there’s fencing on other boundaries of the grazing land it simply isn’t practical to fence off the river - and as someone who also rows on the river I usually see a cow in the water at least once a year, so it’ll be interesting to see if they work!
This also makes me think of a question: Can similar technology be applied to other fields, such as wildlife conservation? Many endangered species are now threatened with extinction, and technology like this may play a very important role in protecting them. If it can help prevent animals from entering dangerous areas or better monitor their activities, it may bring great breakthroughs to conservation work.
Children maybe every human
zeristor•8mo ago
https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2025/05/local-news.html
Sometimes the provenance is just as interesting
walterbell•8mo ago
aspenmayer•8mo ago