Audio Cues and Its Application to Virtual Fence

Virtual fence has the possibility to improve management practices for grazing livestock. It will allow producers to utilize areas for grazing that are otherwise unusable due to the lack of fencing or ability to fence as well as make rotational grazing easier to manage. The virtual fence project I’m working on aims to make a product that is easily transportable, cost effective, and is successful for including and excluding animals in a certain area. This research focuses on the audio cue which is applied prior to an electrical stimulus in the hopes that the animal will be able to associate the sound with a shock and learn this as an avoidance cue. The specific aims are to determine: (1) Is sound an effective stimulus to include/exclude cattle from a motivated source; (2) Does the tone and duration of the sound change the effectiveness of the stimulus; (3) Does the direction/location of sound affect the reaction of associative learning in cattle. This research will help us better understand sound when used as an associated cue and will hopefully reduce the amount of times the animal is shocked and therefore increase the effectiveness of virtual fence