Cargando…
Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep
Early virtual fencing trials have effectively contained small groups of sheep within set areas of a paddock when all animals were wearing manual electronic collars. With sheep farming commonly involving large flocks, a potential cost-effective application of virtual fencing would involve applying eq...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7532778/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33062448 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10066 |
_version_ | 1783589995566596096 |
---|---|
author | Marini, Danila Kearton, Tellisa Ouzman, Jackie Llewellyn, Rick Belson, Sue Lee, Caroline |
author_facet | Marini, Danila Kearton, Tellisa Ouzman, Jackie Llewellyn, Rick Belson, Sue Lee, Caroline |
author_sort | Marini, Danila |
collection | PubMed |
description | Early virtual fencing trials have effectively contained small groups of sheep within set areas of a paddock when all animals were wearing manual electronic collars. With sheep farming commonly involving large flocks, a potential cost-effective application of virtual fencing would involve applying equipment to only a proportion of the flock. In this study, we tested the ability of virtual fencing to control a small flock of sheep with differing proportions of the group exposed to the virtual fence (VF). Thirty-six Merino sheep were identified as leaders, middle or followers by moving them through a laneway. The sheep were then allocated to groups balanced for order of movement. The groups (n = 9 per group) included applying the VF to the following proportions of animals within each group: (1) 100% (n = 9 VF) (2) 66% (n = 6 VF; n = 3 no VF) (3) 33% (n = 3 VF; n = 6 no VF) (4) 0% (no VF; free to roam the paddock). The groups were given access to their own paddock (80 × 20 m) for two consecutive days, six hours per day, with the VF groups prevented from entering an exclusion zone that covered 50% of the north side of the paddock. During these hours, VF interactions, behavioural time budgets, and body temperature were recorded as measures of stress, and location was tracked with GPS. Group 100% VF and Control were tested on the first two days and groups 33% VF and 66% VF were tested on the following two days. During VF implementation the 100% VF and 66% VF group were successfully prevented from entering the exclusion zone. Having only 33% of the flock exposed to the virtual fence was not successful, with the sheep pushing forward through the VF to join flock mates in the exclusion zone. For learning to respond to the audio cue, sheep in the 33% group received more electrical stimuli with a 0.51 proportion for the ratio of electrical stimuli to audio cue, compared to 0.22 and 0.28 for the 100% and 66% groups, respectively. There were small differences in behavioural patterns of standing and lying on both days of testing, with the 100% VF and 66% VF groups spending more time lying. Although stress-induced hyperthermia did not occur in any of the VF groups, body temperature differed in the 33% VF group. There were no differences in temperature measures between the control and 100% VF animals. This study demonstrates that for a short period, controlling two-thirds of the flock was equally as effective as virtually fencing all animals, while controlling one-third of a flock with a virtual fence was not effective. For the short term, it appears that implementing the VF to a proportion of the flock can be an effective method of containment. Due to the limitations of this study, these results warrant further testing with larger flocks and for longer periods. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7532778 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75327782020-10-13 Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep Marini, Danila Kearton, Tellisa Ouzman, Jackie Llewellyn, Rick Belson, Sue Lee, Caroline PeerJ Agricultural Science Early virtual fencing trials have effectively contained small groups of sheep within set areas of a paddock when all animals were wearing manual electronic collars. With sheep farming commonly involving large flocks, a potential cost-effective application of virtual fencing would involve applying equipment to only a proportion of the flock. In this study, we tested the ability of virtual fencing to control a small flock of sheep with differing proportions of the group exposed to the virtual fence (VF). Thirty-six Merino sheep were identified as leaders, middle or followers by moving them through a laneway. The sheep were then allocated to groups balanced for order of movement. The groups (n = 9 per group) included applying the VF to the following proportions of animals within each group: (1) 100% (n = 9 VF) (2) 66% (n = 6 VF; n = 3 no VF) (3) 33% (n = 3 VF; n = 6 no VF) (4) 0% (no VF; free to roam the paddock). The groups were given access to their own paddock (80 × 20 m) for two consecutive days, six hours per day, with the VF groups prevented from entering an exclusion zone that covered 50% of the north side of the paddock. During these hours, VF interactions, behavioural time budgets, and body temperature were recorded as measures of stress, and location was tracked with GPS. Group 100% VF and Control were tested on the first two days and groups 33% VF and 66% VF were tested on the following two days. During VF implementation the 100% VF and 66% VF group were successfully prevented from entering the exclusion zone. Having only 33% of the flock exposed to the virtual fence was not successful, with the sheep pushing forward through the VF to join flock mates in the exclusion zone. For learning to respond to the audio cue, sheep in the 33% group received more electrical stimuli with a 0.51 proportion for the ratio of electrical stimuli to audio cue, compared to 0.22 and 0.28 for the 100% and 66% groups, respectively. There were small differences in behavioural patterns of standing and lying on both days of testing, with the 100% VF and 66% VF groups spending more time lying. Although stress-induced hyperthermia did not occur in any of the VF groups, body temperature differed in the 33% VF group. There were no differences in temperature measures between the control and 100% VF animals. This study demonstrates that for a short period, controlling two-thirds of the flock was equally as effective as virtually fencing all animals, while controlling one-third of a flock with a virtual fence was not effective. For the short term, it appears that implementing the VF to a proportion of the flock can be an effective method of containment. Due to the limitations of this study, these results warrant further testing with larger flocks and for longer periods. PeerJ Inc. 2020-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC7532778/ /pubmed/33062448 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10066 Text en ©2020 Marini et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Agricultural Science Marini, Danila Kearton, Tellisa Ouzman, Jackie Llewellyn, Rick Belson, Sue Lee, Caroline Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title | Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title_full | Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title_fullStr | Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title_full_unstemmed | Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title_short | Social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
title_sort | social influence on the effectiveness of virtual fencing in sheep |
topic | Agricultural Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7532778/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33062448 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10066 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT marinidanila socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep AT keartontellisa socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep AT ouzmanjackie socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep AT llewellynrick socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep AT belsonsue socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep AT leecaroline socialinfluenceontheeffectivenessofvirtualfencinginsheep |