Halter virtual fencing system transforms Tasmanian dairy farm management

Troy Ainslie has been using the Halter system since July and says it has transformed the way he farms.

It would contribute the same rise in productivity and profitability to grazing dairy systems that irrigation had achieved.

The system had improved the farm's pasture management, labour management, herd health and mating management.

Mr Ainslie has been farm manager at Woodrising Dairies at Cressy, Tas, for the past five years.

The business won the 2023 Tasmanian Dairy Business of the Year award, after being a finalist in the award in the previous two years.

Woodrising Dairies is owned by primarily family-based investor fund Compass Tas Dairy Operations.

The 150-hectare property is fully irrigated with two centre-pivot irrigators and about 40ha of hard-hose irrigation.

The spring-calving 540-cow herd is transitioning from being a Holstein herd to a three-way crossbred herd.

In 2022-23, the farm produced 511 kilograms of milk solids per cow on a diet comprising pasture and 1.2 tonnes of grain, including lead feed.

The farm employs 3.3 full-time equivalent labour units, including the manager.

Based on 2023 Dairy Business of the Year Award criteria, the return was 9.6 per cent operating return on asset.

Woodrising Dairies is using the complete Halter package.

This includes virtual fencing, the pasture management app, health monitoring and heat detection.

All the cows in the herd have been fitted with the Halter collars.

The collars emit sounds, vibrations and low energy pulses to prompt the cows to either stay in a particular area or to move to another area.

The areas where cows are to be contained or moved to are set using the app on a mobile phone.

The collars also monitor the health of individual cows and identify the mating status of cows.

The collars also allow the location of each cow to be monitored.

The pasture management and feeding app calculates the amount of feed available and fed, using an array of information, including photos taken of post-grazing residuals, estimated leaf emergence rate and available moisture for the farm.

Mr Ainslie said the system had completely changed the daily routine of how they manage the herd.

It starts from first thing in the morning.

Instead of a team member heading out on a quad bike to bring the herd in for milking, at 4.40am Halter prompts the animals to move from their paddock to the dairy, where they are met by the milking staff.

After milking, farmers guide the cows to leave the dairy and head back to the paddock.

Once there, Halter will guide them to their virtual break and no one needs to close the gate behind them.

A team member then conducts a visual check of the grazing residuals in the break and uses the app to allocate more pasture if needed.

If the target has been reached and the cows seem hungry, the app is used to move the virtual fence to give the cows an extra strip of grass or they are fed silage.

The app provides information about how much feed is available in different parts of the farm, informing the decisions about allocations.

If needed, the break is checked again at 1pm and further adjustment made to the virtual fence if required.

At 2.15pm, the collars again prompt the cows to return to the dairy.

After milking, cows are all back in the paddock by 5pm.

Staff go out and check the pasture allocation, adjusting or setting new breaks if required, and then go home for the evening.

The system provides alerts about cows if their behaviour deviates from the normal pattern.

Staff can also use the app to identify a particular cow in a paddock.

LED lights on the collars can be activated by these alerts, so the cow can be easily identified and drafted at milking.

Mr Ainslie said cows had adapted quickly to the Halter system.

It had taken the herd about 16 hours to learn the cues to stay within an area defined by the virtual fence.

Cows receive an audible alert if they approach the virtual boundary to encourage them to move back within their break.

If the cow chooses to ignore the primary cues and they have reached their maximum threshold, a low-energy pulse is applied.

Cows receive ample time to correct their direction, and as long as they make progress to return to the break, they won't receive a pulse.

The herd learned the cues to move to another area within 10 days.

Mr Ainslie said the system worked beautifully with the cows' natural behaviour.

The system learned each cow's normal behaviour, so if a cow, for example, took longer to walk to the dairy, its cues were adjusted to suit.

This allows the system to fit with the herd's natural hierarchy.

"When you go in on a quad bike and someone goes around behind them, the back ones are pushed up," he said.

"And the front ones in the paddock might still be sitting down and then they all start to get rushed.

"Whereas with this, they just move in their own time.

"They all get the alert at the same time, but if that one that wants to sit there for an extra three or four minutes and wait for her hierarchy in the herd, it's all just natural movement. It's actually great to watch."

Although the herd was not being pushed, it moved to the dairy faster.

"Post calving, if it was wet and rainy and the lanes were a bit wet and slippery, we'd take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour for the cows to come in with a quad bike," Mr Ainslie said.

"With this they seem to move naturally, and they're back to the dairy in 20-25 minutes, and they're not rushed.

"They do it at their own pace."

Mr Ainslie said the Halter system had allowed them to be more accurate with pasture allocations and residuals.

This season by their fourth pasture rotation they had not had to top any paddocks because the pasture quality was better.

In the past, they had started topping by their third round.

"We're not leaving as much behind, so the next time the quality is better again," he said.

Mr Ainslie said to make the most of the fully-irrigated platform, he tried to allocate so that all pasture was used to feed the cows, rather than dropping out paddocks for silage production.

To do that, he manipulates the amount of grain fed.

"We've been able to feed a little less grain for the season so far because we're utilising the pasture better by using Halter," he said.

Halter would also help him cut the amount of fertiliser used and apply it more accurately.

The system identifies areas where the cows camp or spend more time and produces heat maps showing those areas.

These can then be shared with fertiliser contractors who can use variable-rate technology to apply fertiliser at different rates across the farm

"So we are going to be more accurate with our fertiliser, which is going to be a huge saving and better for the environment," Mr Ainslie said.

They are also looking to change some of the farm's current permanent fencing set up to allow them to use Halter for grazing in different blocks.

The Halter system has also delivered big labour savings and created a safer workplace.

"It's a whole lot better for the staff because it's reduced a safety risk; they're not out getting cows in the cold and dark and rain," Mr Ainslie said.

"We're saving at least four hours a day just with getting cows in.

"That four hours a day is pretty valuable to us in a small team.

"It's allowed us to use the staff in more important areas, like calving and calf rearing at that vital time of year."

It has also allowed staff more time to focus on things that drive profitability rather than being bogged down on mundane tasks.

The herd health and reproductive status information provided by the system and the ease with which animals can be identified and drafted has also delivered big benefits.

The system learns each cow's normal behaviour and provides alerts when the animal deviates from that.

"So it tracks the cows, it gives us information on rumination and grazing and a heap of other trends," Mr Ainslie said.

"The health alerts around calving are phenomenal for picking up things.

"To visually look at the cow, she looked fine.

"But we've got an alert and when we've examined her, we find something like a bit of metritis."

The system was detecting cows with problems after calving within a day or two, instead of the 14 or 20 days later they would have been detected in the past.

The system has also identified animals with mastitis days before staff would have identified that issue in the past.

Halter farmers can choose to integrate with Easy Dairy's automatic draft gate system by exporting each cow's heat information from Halter's app to Easy Dairy for seamless drafting.

Mr Ainslie used Halter to move cows post calving three times a day to provide them with access to fresh feed more often - although it was the same total amount of feed provided.

This encouraged them to eat more at a time when they were recovering from calving.

This had led to a huge improvement in their post-calving recovery time.

Lameness had also been reduced 30pc because cows were not being pushed when they were being moved.

This enabled the cows to walk at their own pace, keep their heads down and watch their feet.

The system is also used for heat detection.

"We get notifications about cows on heat that day, and we can put them in the computer or manually draft them out with the gate," he said.

The collars also had LED lights that flashed when the cows were on heat, so staff could easily identify the cow when it came into the dairy.

"It's more accurate than other things we've done in the past," he said.

"Whether we used paint or other methods of heat detection, it seems to be more accurate."

This year they had used tail paint to identify cows for different breeding programs and it was clear that Halter was identifying some cows in heat where the tail paint was not showing that.

Mr Ainslie said the complete package had transformed the way he managed the farm.

It had given him more time and more information to manage strategically.

"I would say it's given me 30pc more time to focus elsewhere," he said.

It had reduced costs across the farm, including fuel costs, vehicle maintenance costs and animal health costs.

"I think it's incredible for grazing management," he said.

"But also at the end of nine weeks of calving, I've never felt so good.

"I hadn't been tired and rundown.

"The different systems you can use with it with the health alerts, the accuracy of being able to go and find that cow that might have something wrong with her.

"We are not out in the wet and the cold, so I'm not burning energy trying to stay warm.

"The little things like that have just improved so much."

Compass Agribusiness managing director Nigel Pannett said Compass had installed Halter on four farms.

"We see huge potential in the way Halter's system can drive production and efficiency on our farms," he said.

"We've integrated the system into four farms as we recognise the value for our people, their lifestyles and the environment."